


All The Little Horses

by BetweenTownleys



Series: Folk Songs and other Love Stories [2]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games), Red Dead Redemption 2
Genre: 1970's Rodeo AU, Arthur groaning with his face in his palm, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, John introspection POV fic, John is a literal trash fire, John steals money and finds a family, M/M, Micah has a gang of fiends, OH NO Arthur's HOT, The Strange Man - Freeform, canon family dynamics, criminal defector and draft dodger John Marston, frustrated horny 20something John, h o r s e s, het sex if you're into that, maybe reincarnation fic maybe not? YOU DECIDE, the gang's all here, tough on the outside soft on the inside horse whisperer Arthur Morgan, underground drug crimes and big open Oklahoma landscapes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:14:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 43,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23569651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetweenTownleys/pseuds/BetweenTownleys
Summary: Oklahoma, 1972, Middle of Bumf*ck Nowhere-- Criminal defector and draft dodger John Marston once again finds himself in a very familiar place, at the other end of a hangman’s noose. But just like always where John is concerned, even if he can't help it, even if he doesn't mean it, this is the beginning of a story about family.[a 1970's Morston rodeo crime drama fix-it fic]
Relationships: Abigail Roberts Marston/John Marston, Abigail Roberts Marston/John Marston/Arthur Morgan, John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Series: Folk Songs and other Love Stories [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696540
Comments: 25
Kudos: 71





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the first time possibly ever in my entire life, I have begun work on a true AU! I love the world of Red Dead so much, and missed the experience of writing in those character's heads, so to pass some of the time and entertain my fellow quarantined fans, please accept this nearly original new work. It will only have a few parts, though I'm not sure how many exactly? I'm outlining it to move fairly quick, but each chapter will be long. The title is a mashup between two influences, Cormac McCarthy's novel All The Pretty Horses, about a boy on the run from the law trying to discover the nature of love and family, and the old folk song All The Pretty Little Horses, one origin story of which is supposedly about slaves having to put down their own children in order to care for someone else's. I thought I liked the concept of John coming to the gang as an adult instead of as a child, and what that might look like at it's barest bones if John had just kept on doing what he had been doing as a kid. This fic is hitting that big fat RESET button on the morston story!! So please be sure to read my previous work, YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE, for my most ardent and intense canon interpretations of that relationship. But this time around we're giving the boys a happy ending. Is it because of The Strange Man? MAYBE! Or maybe not! It's ambiguous for now! But we sure are peppering in some crime drama along the way, in this hard morston reboot AU. Well howdy, escapism! Hope y'all enjoy.

  
  


John Marston’s deadstock brown work boots scuff the warehouse gravel once as his body is hoisted into the air. 

Everything gets louder as he goes up-- his heart is a wild stampede in his chest, the thunderous noise of it making the rest of the world cringe back. The noose cuts tight into the flesh of his neck, and he can feel the rope fibers twist and burn, close to drawing blood. His face balloons with pressure, and he kicks out into brutal emptiness. He thrashes as he feels himself pulled up higher, stuttering, too fast, then stopping up short, then being jerked even higher again. Every involuntary panic reflex of his body only serves to tighten the knot, and hastens his inevitable fate. 

It _would_ be his fucking luck to die like this. To have his neck snapped here and now, just as quick and easy as a chicken for dinner. He’d deserve as much anyway, even if he still clings stubbornly to life. His hands claw helplessly at the rope, but there is nothing to hold onto. Everywhere he reaches, there’s _nothing_. No help will come tonight. No reprise. Surely, this is the end. It has been a very long road up until this moment, but only John knows just how much farther the road was meant to lead him. 

Somewhere below, John can still hear the truck engine running, and men shuffling, and Gene Autry crackling on the radio. _‘Many months have come and gone,’_ the easy melody fades into the distance, quieter with each horrible gush of blood coagulating in his head, _‘since I wandered from my home.’_ Somebody slams the truck door shut, and the lyrics recede even further beneath the roaring of John’s pulse. _‘Many a page in life has turned, many lessons have I learned!’_

“ _Jesus_ fuckin’ _Christ_ , would somebody just _shoot_ this sommbitch already? He’s harder to kill than a God damn cockroach! I can’t take this _waiting around_! Joe, you do it!” 

“Yeah, alright.”

It seems likely it was close to midnight when John first went up the rope. Now, he can’t tell if he’s been swinging for two minutes or two hours. There’s only emptiness and desperation closing in around him with the darkness. As oxygen leeches from his brain and his vision fuzzes over, he swings sideways with all his remaining strength against the feel of the rope. It vibrates, tense around the ceiling beam. If he could just yank it free somehow… But there’s nothing to grab onto, nothing to set a toe against-- nothing--- _nothing---_

The first shot goes off loud as a canon and glass shatters somewhere behind John. He chokes out what would have been a yell if he’d had the voice for it, and the men down on the ground all laugh with cruelty. 

“ _Good_ _shot_ , Joe. For a fuckin’ panty waist!” A bottle breaks. The aroma of whiskey burns the air. 

“Suck a dog’s dick, it’s dark in here!” 

“Next thing he’ll say is he can’t take a piss cuz he cain’t find his pecker!”

“What’d you say to me?”

“Shut up! _Shut_ up! Why the _fuck_ do I pay you to do this if none of you assholes can even hit a stationary fucking target? Give me the gun. Just give it to me!” 

The second shot strikes John in the shoulder socket, and he makes a pathetic sound through clenched teeth like the bullet has instead gone through his gut. Tears stream down his face as he struggles to hold onto consciousness, and one final burst of energy finds him thrashing out, and this time, his boots make contact with something fleshy. Someone’s chin. He hears a grunt of pain and a body staggering back in the gravel.

“Boss! Are you alright?” 

“ _Get off of me! Where’s my fucking knife? I’m gonna teach this piece of shit sneak thief what a knife can do, where is it?!”_

A third shot fires off from a higher vantage point, and all at once the room explodes into chaos. John is fading now, too rapidly to care much about the sounds of the warehouse doors suddenly screeching open on their heavy metal chains. He can’t care anymore about the voices of yelling men, the truck doors slamming, the tires screeching, digging gulches into the dirt as the Ford tears out into the cool nighttime, or the gunshots that follow. John’s blood drips down his limp fingers, and _that,_ somehow _,_ is mostly what he remembers. He has already faded half out of consciousness, but just before the blackness takes him, he hears another shot. He feels the rope around his throat snap just at the beam above his head, and he draws in a raw gasp of air that burns like fire.

He falls. He falls and he falls, and there is no bottom. He falls into emptiness, and into silence, and his last thought before he sinks completely beneath the veil is that he has inexplicably failed; that he will have died alone again, and that he never even had the opportunity to stash the suitcase key in a secret place, and that a particular, strange man in a very tall black stove pipe hat is sure to have some very disappointed words for him when next they meet. 

John hits the ground. And then he doesn’t think about anything. 

  
  
  
  
  


═══════♘♞═══════  
**CHAPTER 1: THE BELLED COYOTE** **  
** ═══════♘♞═══════

  
  
  
  


Dark is funny. Sometimes dark feels like safety, and sometimes dark isn’t dark at all-- instead, what folk call _‘dark’_ is actually the silvery moon casting its bright purple gaze out over a stretch of wild mesa. John likes that kind of dark, where he is free to roam alone with his own thoughts. Other times, dark actually _is_ dark, like when it is the fear behind his blind eyes when he is being nailed beneath the lid of a coffin. That kind of dark is less savory. But John originally hails from wild country, he might be a stupid sonnovabitch but he surely makes up for that in bravery, and so he isn’t afraid when he realizes he is alive before he can see clearly. He blinks through the dark, eyes adjusting. But then he _is_ surprised to realize _where_ he is. John is in a mobile trailer. And after that, he realizes that he is in someone’s bed. 

No lights are on anywhere as he sits up, and a sheet that had been cast over him pools in his lap. He’s in his skivvies, and his right shoulder is stiff and difficult to move from the tight bind a stranger has set around it. Someone has actually gone through the trouble of patching him up. This in and of itself seems wildly unreal since John is the kind of creature who has never been much for pack living, but secondly because he doesn’t know even a single person in the whole state of Oklahoma, which at least is where he thought he was before going and getting himself strung up. He hopes to God he’s still in Oklahoma, anyway, and that he has not woken up three states to the east and in the hands of his enemies. But then he thinks, the kinds of men he’s fought before wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of digging the bullet out of his shoulder if they were just going to shoot him in the face. John knows he isn’t very smart, but at least he knows not too many of his rivals are clever men either. He grunts as he tests the stiff joint, then thinks better of it when his shoulder throbs in protest against even the slightest motion. 

The trailer is humble. Small. Grey-streaked even in the shadows, nearly unfurnished, and apparently completely empty of people other than John. He can’t hear any human voices anywhere nearby to speak of, and eventually he cautiously edges out of bed. He finds his clothes washed and folded on the kitchen counter, and that room too is mostly empty of regular human possessions. All he finds to clue him in that anyone has ever lived there is a half-empty bottle of whiskey, a bowl of mealy apples, and a stack of recently dated ammunition catalogs. 

Hopping on one foot with the effort of dressing himself one-handed, John wriggles as quickly as he can back into his shirt and pants, and he stomps his heels back into his deadstock boots. Still, nobody comes. He tries the faucet, and when it produces a dribble of clean water John falls on it with predatory desire, and bends his head sideways to suck down a few long, parched gulps. When he tests the rickety door, he is surprised again to find it unlocked. He steps outside with no trouble at all. No protest comes from anything or anyone. 

It is still nighttime. Or, _maybe_ , he supposes, it could very well be several night times later. He is hungry enough for it, he realizes, in the wake of the taste of fresh water. Either way, outside is the familiar kind of dark John likes, that purple dark that’s from the face of a full moon shining in a cloudless sky, so he can see clear enough. He can see he is surrounded on all sides by small groups of other trailers, and they are all equally shadowy and quiet. He peers around for any other clues as to where he might have found himself, and when he looks to the left he nearly jumps out of his skin. A placid brown horse is standing silently nearby. It isn't tethered to anything, and looking at him with a vacant interest. 

“ _Jesus_ ,” John gasps, then steps down into the dirt. “Make some goddamn noise next time, horse! Scared me half dead and gone!” The horse stares back, until it finally judges John boring and bends it’s strong neck down to nibble at a tuft of dry grass. John leaves it there, and wanders in the opposite direction. 

The night is cool but not cold, and he comes face to face with a flat expanse of purple planes beyond the ring of trailers, and beyond those, the black silhouettes of low rolling hills. Silver stars prickle in a sky that hangs wide and vast. There are miles and miles of nothing in every direction around the little camp, except for one. A ways to the west, John can barely make out the curve of a road, and the black shape of a low building. There, he can barely see the orange pinprick of a single lonely street lamp. 

There’s nothing for it, John realizes at once. He has not been held captive. He’s nobody’s prisoner, he thinks again, even more resolutely. It’s either that building or the great planes, and John is too hungry for that escape plan to even bear considering right now. He’s hungry, and he’s tired, and his shoulder _fucking hurts_ . He needs _humans_ , as much as he resents that fact. He wants an aspirin and a whiskey. Hell, maybe he wants two whiskeys. And he sure as hell wants to know why he’s not dead. Why his bullet-riddled corpse isn’t swinging from a crossbeam like he thought it would be by now. So he squares up, sucks in a breath to steel his nerves, and he begins to walk. 

  
  
  


The walk takes longer than John expects, and by the time he’s close enough to the building to make it out a bit better, he’s already wincing at the way his own gait jars his rotator cuff. He has been hurt before, sure. Plenty of times. At the orphanage or on the road, John is familiar with wounds that take time to heal. But this one is something else. This one digs deep, and radiates heat and pain like a burning coal. It doesn’t bear thinking that his right side is his shooting arm. He grips his elbow as he limps closer, as finally, he begins to make out a strange figure by the building in the distance. 

The building is some kind of commercial single-story, but John can’t tell what it’s function is as he approaches it from the rear side. There is a large man sitting on a wooden stool at the back entrance next to the dumpster, but his face is hidden by the brim of his gramblers hat. He’s puffing on the end of a cigarette, and it casts an orange glow that swells and recedes with his breath. John slows as he approaches. He is in poor condition for a fight if it comes to it, and at the sight of this large potential enemy, John wonders if he could win that brawl, even on one of his better days. But the sound of his feet shuffling to a stop has done half the job for him despite his best efforts, because the big man goes abruptly still as a deer and looks up when he hears it. 

At first, the big man doesn’t say anything. He just looks at John, one hand raised to pinch his smoke. He sucks in a lungful and pulls the butt slowly from his lips, exhaling with a thoughtful tilt of the head. His eyes are shrewd, but there is something about him John hadn’t quite expected before fully seeing his face. Something more intense. He can’t quite put his thumb on it. 

“Made it out alive then?” The stranger breathes out through the smoke. It isn’t a question, and John is not sure _why_ he is hit so palpably with a pang of irritation. It’s not like he _wanted_ to die. He shuffles in the dirt, still a few feet off. 

“Where’s this?” John gravels. His voice is even more wrecked than usual, from the violence of the rope and from his long, dry sleep. It surprises even him. “Still in Oklahoma?” 

“Mayhap.” 

“...Well, are we or _ain’t_ we still in Oklahoma, friend?” 

“You ain’t anywhere, _friend_ .” he emphasizes the word a little mockingly, and John bristles again. Everything about this man seems cold, and there’s a certain twang in his sound, like something from further south. Texas, possibly, though it’s vague. “Oklahoma, Nebraska, Montana, it’s all about the same. You’re in _Bumfuck Middle of Nowhere,_ that’s where.” The big man chomps on his cigarette butt with his teeth and gestures at the building. “But this here’s the _Pretty Pony_. Congratulations, kid. You didn’t die.”

“You the one what cut me down?” 

The big man chews on his smoke. “None of my goddamn business what you do, if you live or if you don’t. You was just in the _wrong_ place at the _right_ _time_. _I’dve_ left you. So you can thank your lucky stars it weren’t up to me.” 

The size of this burly stranger suddenly seems less relevant again as John feels his blood begin to boil in his throat. But he is in no condition to fight, he has to remind himself of this fact again like an idiot child, and someone here is surely the one who has cared for him in his moment of need. So John swallows the glob of anger back down and tries to level out his voice. “Alright then, so point my rudder towards the one I _should_ thank, _friend_.” 

Despite this forced civility, things go sideways anyway. Every fiber of John’s suggestion seems to disagree with the large man. John watches his face change in increments, even though it doesn’t outwardly appear to shift too much at all. It’s there, though. Right there, around the mouth and eyes. A kind of stiffening. John unconsciously draws himself up taller as the big man finally tosses his smoke into the dirt and stands up. He is enormous. 

For a blazing moment, John is afraid the man will swing on him anyway, merited or not. He closes the space between them and looks John up and down with the pointed authoritarian energy of a man not used to being pressed by fools. Under the lamplight, John can see his bristles are gold, and that he’s strong and thick as the trunk of a tree. But then the moment breaks, and the man steps back. John does not feel his own nervous sweat until the big man opens the back door, and the wind of the motion buffets John’s face. He stares ahead in confused silence, until the stranger makes another sarcastic gesture for him to enter. When nothing happens, he sighs, and says with clipped anger, “Well go on now! Christ alive, you’re dumber’n a cow, ain’t you? Get inside already, it’ll all be clear in good time.” 

“In there?”

“That’s right, cowboy. Go right on in.” 

John’s gaze narrows. “I ain’t no cowboy, _friend_ .” He doesn’t like the condescension in that tone. Who the hell does this asshole think he is? Just some junked up testosterone-addled shithead who thinks he’s the boss of any folk he can figure how to muscle down. John has seen his ilk a thousand times before. Men have always played wrestling games in his world, men down on their luck, salt of the earth fellers who try to hurt without ever touching one another. That is, until someone crosses a line. Then, nothing’s off the table. Often enough John prefers it that way. He _hates_ mind games. He’d rather punch first and ask questions later, but again he forces himself to remember his current condition. Only an idiot would ask for a fight now, and John sure as hell tries his best not to be more stupid than he can manage. 

The stranger only grins without humor, flinty behind his pupils. “Then what _are_ you?” He’s casual, but he’s also anything but. 

The question hangs for a pregnant beat, and the purple nighttime is near dead quiet. “...just a wanderer.” 

Again the big stranger runs his eyes up and down John’s figure, calculating. But this time thankfully he doesn’t say anything else. He only spits off to the side and gestures at the door one more time. 

John spits too, a final display of dislike, and he quietly goes inside. 

  
  
  


═══════♘♞═══════

  
  
  
  
  


There is something magnetic about the man Dutch Van der Linde that John Marston finds he likes immediately. Life has taught John caution with every step, but this Dutch feller is really something special... though, maybe John only thinks this because it is quickly explained to him that Dutch is the man who had shot down the rope that had nearly strung John up by the neck until dead. There is something eerily reassuring in the man’s voice when he sits John down at the wooden bar (because the building is a vacant strip club, John is chagrined to discover,) and when Dutch gestures, a surly looking woman with a blonde braid and overalls pours him nearly a pint of whiskey. She is maybe the bartender, but there is no question about who the owner of the establishment is here. At the _very_ least, Dutch is the owner. Though it would be just as easy to think he might be some sort of demigod. He’s got that attitude about him.

Dutch is broad of shoulder, and wearing a flashy red suit that’s just a bit too tight, and his mustache is as thick as a boar’s bristle brush. Although John finds his natural reaction is to like this interesting gentleman from the get-go, he has to remind himself to hold back. So John stays as temperate as he can manage, and he sips on his whiskey, and he watches another significantly less clothed blonde woman with large breasts bring Dutch an Old Fashioned. 

“Thank you, Karen my dear.” Dutch takes the drink and turns an elbow back towards John to settle on the bar. “So, in _conclusion_ , son, we would _very_ much like your help! We’ve been after those boys who snatched you up a long time. A _long_ time. Of course, only if you’re willing! Now that you’re all patched up! See, you’re the only one who was on site that night, and you could say I’ve still got a few of my own, erruh... _questions_ . For you, of course, but also _for them._ Some _unfinished business,_ as it were?” 

John nods. “I ain’t seen none of them, sir. No faces. It was too dark. I just found the cookhouse six mile out towards Thurber, thought I was lucky since none of them sons of bitches were there at the time. About sunset when I went through their place. Smelled _godawful_.”

Interest sparks in Dutch’s eyes, vivid and bright, near to greed. “And what exactly did you _find_ in that cookhouse, son?” 

There is something calculating in Dutch’s eyes that John finds magnetic and terrifying. The _real_ truth behind the story of his capture, even in his stupidity with tricky conversations, is something John is sure he should try to keep secret. That he should try to safeguard it, at least for now… showing all his cards too early is a fool’s move. But John is exhausted, and he really _is_ grateful to Dutch and his people for the help they have given him. So when Dutch leans in further and grins a little, a bit fatherly, a bit conspiratorial, John takes a gulp of his whiskey and feels that charm settling on him like a warm hand on his face. He’ll be as helpful as he can… within reason. 

“Methamphetamines, sir. A hell of a lot. And pornographic magazines.” _And a suitcase with a cool half million in it._ “Some shit dog nobody bothered to feed. Dead unfortunately, poor bastard. Chained up outside. Coyotes ripped off it’s back leg I think.” 

“And that’s all?” Again Dutch presses, quieter, more intense. “You didn’t see nothin’ else?” 

John sits up straighter, and wipes his face blank. He likes this Dutch feller, but he’s good at poker too. The stakes are low as far as Dutch knows, but they’re also life-or-death; John needs _food_ , and _sleep_ , and _time to heal_. “Nossir. Hate to admit it, but I was lookin’ to rob the place if it was uninhabited. Hope that don’t change your opinion of me too much, but we all got our own lives. Me? I got a pipe to the back of my head for my troubles in the end, so I suppose judgement comes for us all in one shape or another. Woke up when they was stringing me up in the dark like a jackrabbit. ‘Course, until you and your folk came along.”

For a long beat, Dutch looks directly into John’s eyes, and his cocktail clinks as the ice melts inside the heat of his hand. But apparently he judges John innocent enough, and he sits back again with an air of causality. His other hand goes out to clap John on the back a few times, and he grins and nods into a sip on his drink. “Lucky we found you when we did, then, ain’t that right, son?” 

“That’s right, sir.” 

“ _Come_ now, _Dutch_ is just fine, ‘sir’ makes me sound so _old_!” 

“Alright,” John grins tentatively. He can’t recall the last time any man had spoken to him in such a fatherly fashion. Even if his time here will be temporary, John resolves to enjoy it. “Dutch, then.” 

“Well, then that settles it. You’ve seen our humble trappings, of course, we are but _mere traveling independent contractors_ , but we hope you’ll stay with us until you’re back on your feet? We are a somewhat more _ethically charitable_ organization than our first appearances allow. Isn’t that right, Mrs. Adler?” 

The surly woman behind the bar shoots John a sussing look, then she picks up a rag and starts polishing pint glasses. “Could use a new errand boy. Bill bursts the toilet pipes every three days with his massive shits. You handy with a plunger, kid? John, you said? John what?”

John’s face stays neutral. “That’d be Milton, ma’am. John Milton.” 

Mrs. Adler looks at him with that same intensity that Dutch has, except longer, then finally nods. “Don’t touch the girls, unless they ask you to first.” 

John glances over his shoulder at the quiet, lightless stage where three women in various states of undress are sitting and grinning when the back door opens again, and the big man from before stalks through the room. Immediately, John averts his gaze from the women and back to the bar, though he feels the unfriendly gaze on the back of his head as the stranger moves through the room and exits again out the front door. For a moment, John can only grip his glass of whiskey, and he feels every hair on the back of his neck bristle. Noticing this look, Mrs. Adler snorts, and leans down on the bar. 

“It’d be in your best interest not to bother Arthur neither, if you can manage that. Better yet, don’t even look at him. It’ll go bad for you.”

“What’s he do?” John grits, and to his left Dutch laughs. 

“Sadie, _please_ , do _not_ put the fear of God in this boy before he’s been with us even a single week! Give him a chance to appeal to Arthur’s _better_ side first, why don’t you?” 

Again John feels his body reacting physically. His eye twitches. “ _Better_ side? Wasn’t under the impression he _had_ one of those.” 

Sadie finally laughs at this too, and pushes away from the bar. “That side’s not for the likes of _you_ , mister Milton. You just let him do his job. He’s the bouncer, _that’s_ what he does, alright? Don’t fight the door and you’ll be just fine. So long as you don’t piss him off.” 

John thinks that the man is too prickly to bother with, and that he must have been born pissed off. But then, so have many other men that John has met, and so he looks over his shoulder again when he knows Arthur has gone. The room feels unusually barren in his absence, even though he had not spoken a word, which John is not sure is good or bad. Except there are two girls on the stage now when before there had been three, and so John wonders if Arthur is the kind of man whose presence alone is enough to command women to follow him.

  
  
  
  


═══════♘♞═══════

  
  
  
  


It takes three weeks for the purple ring of bruises around John’s neck to completely fade. His shoulder, however, is another story. The crackly kitchen radio bursts to life when John reaches forward to twist the knob on, but he flinches back when he overextends himself. Tinny music floods the room with a lofi country radio broadcast, and sun spills out across the floor. The nearly unfurnished trailer that has been given over to John’s use by Dutch has been revealed to him to be the property of a recently deceased member of their party, a one Davey Callander. Mrs. Adler explained that Davey had died in a shootout, and his brother Mac hadn’t been seen in months. For John, who is almost always in need of some variety of help or another, Davey’s death in many ways felt almost prophetic. With no one to fill the vacant space it was deemed prudent to deposit John here, and secretly, he is more pleased by this than he can say. He can’t recall the last time he had a room of his own that wasn’t in a cheap motel, much less an entire trailer. He’s versed enough in living on the street if he has to do it, but part of his lifestyle up until this point has been in service of avoiding that situation whenever possible. Even a dirty motel room is better than a crude pup tent in the middle of a thunderstorm. If only for the money. 

Life at the Pretty Pony camp is better than living on the street by many times. At first, John is not sure why he has been so readily accepted into their small community... But then, he begins to drink with his new friends. When he starts to learn their stories, things begin to grow clearer. 

  
  


John figured he was among criminals the second he’d laid his eyes on Dutch’s red velvet smoking jacket, but he is surprised by how well this particular community seems to function together as a whole. Dutch is the lynch pin, the father figure and the god figure, hand-in-hand with his business partner Hosea Matthews, who John had met only the day before yesterday. Hosea stays off-site at the moment to oversee an investment at a local rodeo, where several members of the camp work. Charles Smith is a mixed native american bronco rider with a busted arm. He joined the camp after his career tanked and his last crew ousted him for the financial loss. Now, he trains new riders to compete in rigged competitions for big cash, with Hosea as his backer. That asshole bouncer Arthur is a horse and cattle rustler for Hosea too, which seems like a much better use of a man like that than parking him outside the door of a barely functioning bar. 

Lenny Summers grew up poor in Shamrock before an argument his father had with a former high Klansman brought unavoidable violence into their family. With justified blood on his hands and the law on the lookout for him, Lenny now hides from arrest by working as Hosea’s right hand man. An altercation at the Mexican border brought the gang the big-hearted and passionate activist Javier Escuela, and Mrs. Sadie Adler came to them after killing her husband’s killers. Dutch’s woman, a luscious redhead by the name of Molly O’Shea, was a high class socialite with a gambling addiction so severe she was cast out of her own family, and the gang boasted two drunks _also_ hiding from debt, the belligerent ex-Reverend Swanson and Pearson the surly army cook. Sean McGuire was a loudmouth showoff kid with too many warrants out for him, and Bill Williamson was ex-army-turned-thief, dishonorably discharged from Vietnam for undisclosed reasons four years previous. 

The Pretty Pony itself was not vacant at all, like John had initially suspected. The bar, in fact, had been open the very night John had first been ushered through the back door by a sarcastic sweep of Arthur Morgan’s callused hand. It functions as a legal strip club, run by an acerbic older woman named Susan Grimshaw, and several women in the gang do functionally work there, but the Pretty Pony is so far away from regular thoroughfares that their customer base is close to nonexistent. John supposes the honeypot is still an effective trap; Mary-Beth, Abigail, Tilly and Karen are all prime cuts, and he mostly feels a little bad for the fellers who wander a bit too close. Those unfortunate souls unlucky enough to pass through the door get fleeced to within an inch of their lives, and if they dare to complain, they are met with the bad end of Arthur’s fist. A fist which John suspects is very, very, _very_ hard.

  
  


The day is hot and blue, and in the center of the ring of trailers, a fire pit blazes with a tin percolator set on top of a rickety grill. John bangs through his trailer door and skips down the steps towards the fire, but jumps when the same strange brown horse that has been wandering the camp nips at the back of his shirt. He whips around and bats the animal in the nose, but it only sneezes once and takes a step closer. 

“Get away!” John complains, and jerks his shirt back from where the horse had once again begun to lip at it, and then he stomps down the path to the fire. 

The camp is alive with motion during the day, and especially in the morning John finds that he likes the traffic of the life of this place. Tilly hands him a cup of coffee and gives him a smile that lingers just a minute too long before she moves off down the path towards the back of camp. The girls don’t go into work until late afternoon, and most of the time they spend the morning sunning on the trailer roofs, or helping Dutch run his errands. Javier is sitting by the fire playing a steel guitar he hadn’t had three days ago, and Sean is sullen and quiet, obviously missing the gold pocket watch he’d been boasting about having stolen off a congressman just a few weeks before. 

A voice roughly interjects, “... _Old Boy_.” 

John looks down. Arthur is also sitting by the fire too, but he had been nearly quiet enough to miss. His shoulders are a wide expanse of worn white cloth, slashed by the brown X of crossed suspenders. John thinks he has _maybe_ been the one to speak, but he isn’t quite sure since the big man hasn’t turned around. Arthur only sighs, and takes a sip of his coffee, slow and measured. “ _Old Boy_.” he says it again, even louder. As if he’s talking to a child, or someone elderly. 

John’s lips go stiff. “You talkin’ to _me_ , friend?” He still doesn’t like Arthur, and he strongly suspects the feeling is mutual. 

Finally, Arthur does turn his head, and he squints up at John with a look of vague distaste. His jaw is very square, and his eyes are blue, John notices for the first time. Incredibly blue. “...the _horse_.” 

“You’re talkin’ to _the horse_?” 

“The _horse’s_ name is _Old Boy_.”

“...Oh.” John mutters. There’s an awkward pause, and he twists around to look back at the animal. Its coat shines a healthy chocolate brown in the sun, and it arcs its strong neck down to nibble at a bit of dried thistle weed. The horse’s mane and tail are a lustrous, milky white. It seems too fine a beast to let wander around with apparently no effort whatsoever to contain it. Not that John knows anything about horses, but, what if it runs off? Or if coyotes come for it? 

“That _your_ horse, mister?” He asks Arthur, wondering if he can get away with asking Arthur _any_ questions. He’s usually too brusk to tolerate talking to. 

“Old Boy don’t belong to nobody.” Arthur huffs, and turns back to his coffee. There’s amusement in his tone, but John can’t tell if it’s a criticism of John’s stupidity or in admiration for the animal. John finally goes to sit down by the fire too. Not too close to Arthur, but not too far off either. 

“Alright, but you feed it?” 

“We feed _you,_ Milton. _You_ belong to us?” 

John takes a sip of his coffee and shrugs. “...Mayhap.” 

Honestly, he might not mind it too bad if he ended up belonging to the gang. He almost _likes_ it here. He likes being fed, anyway. And he’s happy with his immediate plan to coast on free resources. He knows Dutch is keeping him out of a suspicion that he hasn’t told all, but John still needs to buy both trust and time. He can’t worry too much yet about the fact that he’s sitting on a key that unlocks a hidden suitcase he can't quite manage to get to, at the present moment... but he knows, one day soon, he’ll have to start to worry. Because inside that suitcase is a half-million dollars of what John strongly suspects is stolen drug capital. Money John had unwittingly stolen right out from underneath a turf war with those rat bastards what had strung him up. A turf war half of which is currently being orchestrated by Dutch Van Der Linde himself. 

Arthur is instantly surly again. “Yeah well, don’t get too cozy. You _don’t_ belong to us.”

John knows he doesn’t. He’s never had a pack, and doesn’t even know what it would look like if he did. But he’s not going to say it. It would be too annoying to give Arthur the satisfaction of being right.

The coffee is bitter, and John grimaces as he takes another sip. His first order of business should be to gain trust, but out of everyone he’s met in the camp, Arthur is the only one who hasn’t smiled in front of John. Neither one of them is a person who gives up easily, he figures, and an opinion once made is difficult to walk back on. John wonders what exactly it was that he did to fall so immediately out of Arthur’s good graces other than to _not die_ , and he wonders if Arthur will ever see him as anything other than an idiot safety liability. But Arthur does seem to like _something…_ he does like _animals_ . And everyone in the camp seems to like Arthur, regardless of how surly his behavior is, so that’s something. If Arthur didn’t like anything and was liked by no one, _then_ John would have given him up as a lost cause. As things are, John still finds himself a little curious. Arthur is a bastard and a grouse, but the sensation of wanting his approval is somehow still strangely needling. 

“...Old Boy, then.” John eventually nods, acknowledging the name. “Next time I smack him, I’ll do it by name.” 

Arthur huffs in another bout of half-amusement. His hair has fallen across his forehead, and he looks down at his cup as he spins it slowly in his hands. His fingers are heavily calloused, and his knuckles are bulbous from overuse. He’s a man who isn’t afraid of hard work. “Old Boy’s been hangin’ around your trailer for weeks.” Arthur seems genuinely curious. “He _likes_ you, for some godawful reason I can’t figure.” 

“Yeah, alright, well you tell him I _don’t_ like _him_ , would you? Ain’t that thing got a pen or something you can stick it in?” 

“ _You_ _try_ and stick him somewhere he don’t like and see what happens. Now, there’s a horse that's just about _too clever_ for the lot of _us…_ ” Something crackles beneath Arthur’s hard exterior, and his hands almost seem to gentle. John stares at him agog when Arthur doesn’t smile, but his shoulders do go round, and his eyes do close for a moment of quiet appreciation. When he isn’t actively angry, Arthur doesn’t look half bad at all. In fact, wouldn’t someone be able to call him handsome? Some just might. “...But I ain’t worried. He knows where his feed bucket is, so he’ll come to and fro how he likes. Don’t you pay him any mind.” 

John whistles low, and allows himself to finally let loose a tiny grin. He’s actually surprised. He doesn’t think Arthur has ever spoken this many consecutive words to him in a row that weren’t threats. “Sounds like somethin’ which’d piss you off good and proper, I’d figure! I mean, it hits all your buttons, don’t it? A layabout free-roamer? Ain’t it usually your way or the highway, cowboy? Take a _crop_ to that thing if it won’t listen!” 

Across the circle, one of Javier’s guitar strings snaps with an abrupt, menacing twang, and Sean laughs out loud. Something glazes over Arthur’s eyes, and his face goes distant again. He looks colder than maybe he ever has, and then he abruptly stands up and tosses the rest of his coffee into the fire, where it evaporates with a wild hiss. 

“I’d just as soon take _you_ out back with a crop.” Arthur growls, and then he’s off, stalking towards the Pretty Pony with a face just like a storm cloud. John is left behind dumbstruck, sitting silent in his wake and staring after him with the thought that he doesn’t know what tripwire he’s just set off. Maybe trying to talk to Arthur _was_ a lost cause after all. 

Javier laughs at John’s slack jaw expression from across the fire. “ _Estupido_ , you really know how to piss him off, don’t you?” 

“...The hell?” John murmurs in confusion, and then it’s Sean’s turn to laugh again. He slides off the rock he was sitting on and scoots up to the fire to pour himself another cup of coffee. Apparently the sight of someone else more miserable than him is enough to cheer him up. 

“I wouldn’t worry overly much, Artur’s just a wee bit sensitive, is all! He _loves_ his horses, ya see... He loves em’ just like a mother and babe!”

“A _horse whisperer._ ” Javier agrees. 

Sean nods, “A regular Doctor Doolittle!” 

“You should see him with dogs.” 

“And cats!” Sean nods again in concession, “and Chickens! And cattle too, I’d recon? If it’s a beast, it’s likely makin’ moon eyes at our Artur, he’s just that sort of fella! Sweet, really, if you tink about it. But it’s the horses that’ve got the apple of his eye. Artur here’s been after Old Boy fer months! But the nag won’t listen! I imagine _that’s_ a first.”

“ _That_ thing?” John gestures at the swishing tail of the lazy horse now half-hidden behind his trailer. “That thing just shits on my stairs and eats and sleeps! The hell’s so difficult about that?” 

Javier has set the steel guitar down on one end in order to pry the busted string away, but Sean leans back and grins some more, settling his coffee on the pooch of his stomach. “Artur’s good at _everythin’_. And he’s this big man about town, see? Dutch’s best boy and all that. But he’s _chapped_ as all get out that Old Boy don’t mind him! Nag’ll let Artur near with a brush and a pat and a bucket a’ oats, but that’s about _all_ , feller, I’ll tell you what. But that’s a _proper ridin’_ horse, not one of Artur and Charles’s giddyup broncos! Artur wants him for show! Or maybe for pride, ya think? Since the beast just won’t listen?” Sean gives a sharp snort, which immediately knocks his coffee over. He hisses in pain and sits up when the hot liquid burns through his shirt, and then it's Javier’s turn to laugh again, loudly. He leans on his guitar and wipes the mirth from his eyes until Sean stands up too, even more affronted than Arthur. When the opinionated Irishman also stalks away, Javier’s chuckling peters off after they’re alone again, but his grin never entirely fades. “ _Pendejo_.” he sighs through his smirk.

When he looks after Sean’s retreating figure, John is shocked to see almost all of the camp has also emptied out. It seems that whenever Arthur decides to get up, it is collectively deemed a good enough cue for everyone else to get to work too. Now, nearly everyone is already gone, or halfway on their way out. Only the drunk Reverend remains oblivious, snoring and sun burnt with his head thrown back in a chair outside his trailer. It is a strange, unspoken rule John is only now beginning to notice for what it is. He wonders if Arthur really is that proud, and he wonders why everyone seems to love him when he’s such a bastard. There are only so many answers to that particular riddle, but John lingers on the one he finds he likes the least; that maybe, just maybe, Arthur is not a bastard at all. 

Like he had been listening in on John’s thoughts, Javier inserts himself into the quiet again as he twists a peg at the top of the neck of his instrument. “Don’t listen to Sean, he’s full of so much hot air he could power a fleet of balloons. Arthur’s not petty. He’s a good man. He takes care of us all as best he can. He’s just, uhh..!” Javier tugs on his mustache as he tilts his head in thought. “He’s... got a very sensitive side?” 

“ _Too_ sensitive.” John grumbles, and he wonders.

John’s not a prime thinker, he never has been, but now? John wonders now. 

“Too sensitive? Maybe!” Javier laughs, and he gently pries the broken string free from the neck of the guitar for good. “Maybe that’s so, Milton! But I’m not about to bite the hand that feeds me.”

  
  
  
  
  
  


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John has been with the Pretty Pony two months long when he graduates from plunger duty to deliveries. His shoulder is getting better every day, and this change suits John just fine, since Mrs. Adler had been correct in her assessment of the shoddy plumbing system in the bar; five days a week, John had previously found himself on his hands and knees in front of the staff toilet with a plumb line and a grimace. This duty alone, taken without complaint, was disgusting enough to grant him a small net of respect. Now, he finds his delivery duties greet him less often with vaguely disgusted fake smiles, and instead more often with curious, genuine grins. 

The girls in particular have shown an invested interest in his graduation from toilet duty, and for once John is glad for the extra scrutiny. It turns out boredom rules most evenings for the dancers of the wayward strip club, and more and more often than not, John finds himself pulled by the front of his shirt through someone or another’s trailer door. John discovers the girls share their trailers, two and two, or two and three, but all of them are less than shy about sharing their men. Karen in particular is most vocal about the lack of appetizing partner options, citing the tastiest ones to either be absent, unobtainable, or already sampled to satisfaction. John is an anomaly among many, and he doesn’t mind it a whit when Abigail and Karen and Mary-Beth rub cocaine on his gums and take their shirts off to dance around him in a circle. They tell him he is handsome, and he tries to prove them right by being as vigorous in his lovemaking as possible. He is a man after all, with simple needs, and as long as he is eating Dutch’s food and sleeping under Dutch’s roof, why not sample this as well? The invitations are always clear and easy to understand, and John finds no reason not to accept, since the girls are all amenable. _All love should be free_ , they like to say, except when they’re on the clock, and sometimes John finds them in surprising places, least of all in each other’s beds. Mrs. Adler gives him sterner looks than usual, and Susan Grimshaw is either oblivious or completely uncaring, but nobody gets hurt, and everyone seems satisfied, and so John just lets it happen whenever the mood tickles anyone’s fancy. 

The first sign of trouble comes when Abigail takes to sitting in John’s lap by the fire at night, but definitely, _especially_ when Arthur is nearby. John only notices this correlation because he is never _not_ aware of Arthur’s proximity. Arthur is the sort of thorn one can’t just _forget_ about, but Abigail in particular is a very fine looking woman, and John has found there is an intelligent sparkle in her eye that he likes a little more than all the other girls. He chases her a little harder than the rest, and so it is nearly always stressful and confusing to his emotional well-being when both Abigail is in his lap and Arthur is glaring in their direction. After a while he still doesn’t know exactly what is happening, but he grows surer and surer all the time that he is somehow stirring the pot. 

  
  


It is Karen who clears the situation up a few weeks later, one morning when she is lying naked in John’s bed, smoking the dried out end of an old joint. Sex with Karen is easy; she’s filthy-mouthed and her hips are thick, but she doesn’t get attached. John is starting to consider her a real friend, if only she’d drink just a little bit less. 

“This is all well and good, honey, but I’d watch myself if I were you.” She sighs through a cloud of smoke. Her heavy, well-shaped breasts list to the side as her head leans back. 

“How’dyou figure?” John is sitting on the edge of the bed, half done with pulling his jeans back up his skinny legs. 

“Come on, I _know_ you ain’t that stupid! Don’t play dopey with me, baby, we all know you now!” 

John snorts and stands, buckling his jeans. “Is that right?” One day in the future, John knows Karen and all the rest of them will have a goddamn _field day_ when they eventually figure out who he _really_ is, and what he’s really done. 

“That’s right! You’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’ if you keep this up.” 

“Keep _what_ up?” John reaches out and pinches the joint out of Karen’s hand, then sucks on the end. He passes it back, then runs his fingers through his greasy hair. He’s got a delivery to make in a half hour, and he could stay and stare at Karen’s ass until they had another go, but he’d honestly rather get paid. Delivery boy status hadn’t granted him a living wage, but Dutch had thrown in an open tab at the bar of the Pretty Pony, within reason. John figures he’s due for his weekly bottle of tequila. A bottle he _won’t_ be sharing with Karen. 

“I mean _Arthur_ , fool! You’re pissin’ him off! Your luck’s just _rotten_ with him, I swear.”

That stops John up short. He looks down at the naked woman, his eyebrows drawing together. “What’s that mean? I didn’t do shit to Arthur.” 

“You _did_.” Karen laughs. Her teeth are pearly white, and much straighter than John had expected. He still wonders sometimes where she came from. “I mean _Abigail_ , you wily coyote! Arthur’s sweet on her!”

Something about that gums up the works in John’s brain, and he just blinks at Karen in silence. _Sweet on her_ . Arthur was sweet on Abigail? As far as John was aware, Arthur didn’t care about fucking at all. He just cared about doing his job. And, of course, he cared about ribbing John as hard as possible whenever the opportunity arose. But there was the memory of Arthur glaring in his direction with Abigail in his lap, and there was the memory of Arthur checking his shoulder too roughly as they passed through the same door, and there was Abigail’s face in the fire light, looking hopefully in Arthur’s direction, not saying a goddamn word. John’s frown starts to hurt his face, and so he coughs once and turns away, attempting to begin the hunt for his shirt. Where the _fuck_ was his shirt? 

Karen chuckles, still liquid relaxed in the bed. “ _Now_ you’re worried, ain’tcha?”

“ _No_.” John barks, when he actually means yes. He finds his red thermal and pulls it on, and his head pops out the other side in a static frizz. “Look, Karen, I got work. D’you mind?” 

“ _Testy_.” Karen whistles, but she sits up anyway, casual as the day is long. Women’s garb is far less complicated, so she’s in her sundress in a second, and she tweaks John’s dick in his jeans as she brushes past, and he jumps in his shoes. _“See you later, coyote_.” 

For a while, the inside of the trailer is resonantly quiet. John stalks out to the kitchen and stands alone in the empty room with his hands on his hips, and he just breathes. Something in his stomach has snarled into knots and for the life of him he can’t figure it out. He had suspected something was wrong, but to have it served to him so plainly is something else entirely. John doesn’t regret following pleasure when it ropes him in, but for some reason he is regretful now. In fact, he regrets more than he can say. He feels as if he has sinned so _monumentally_ that even the crime of stealing Dutch’s money at the moment seems to pale in comparison. Snakes and snails twist around in his chest cavity, and he goes to lean heavily on the counter for a moment. 

Why? _Why does he feel like this?_ John wonders and he wonders, and he keeps on wondering until he looks up at the clock on the wall. And then he curses and grabs his hat, and then he thunders out the door. 

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More weeks pass, and John starts to get good at errands. He finds that he _likes_ to be constantly working. It sets his head straight when instead he finds if he sits in camp too long, he often gets tangled up in bad thoughts. He has avoided Arthur to the best of his ability, which is fairly good since everyone has got a set schedule, _everybody works,_ and John starts remembering how to do things, and people start remembering who he is. They start remembering that Milton is one of _Dutch’s Boys_ , a familiar face in the wide open Oklahoma expanse. But then comes a different sort of day. 

It takes twenty minutes and a map that shot out the open window that John had to backtrack to rescue before he and his delivery truck find their way to Hosea’s rodeo operation. He’s hauling four spools of twisted cotton and manila rope, and a few hollow steel barrels John has seen the likes of in timed racing events, though only on the television. He isn’t a horse man, but he doesn’t like to show his cards to anyone if he can help it, so he accepts the order and his directions without a word of complaint. The day is like most others this time of year; hot and bright and dusty. John tips his hat forward to get the sun out of his eyes and he pulls the truck up, then jumps down into the dry grass and heads for the office. 

The grounds are huge here at the rodeo and at the moment they’re mostly vacant. Everything shows signs of weather and age. It doesn’t take a wise man to understand this venue is decrepit beyond reasonable safety, but then nothing much in John’s life hasn’t been. He’s used to it, and it feels almost comfortable for him in a way, especially in the poor barrenness of the open landscape. It is familiar in a way that almost aches, though John certainly couldn’t say out loud why that might be. 

As he heads down a deteriorating set of concrete stairs and loops around a sawdust-treated steel pen, a thunderous sound in the distance makes John’s steps slow, until he completely stops up short. One pen over, he can see the figure of a big-shouldered man breaking in a white horse. _Arthur_ , the realization comes quickly. 

The horse is beautiful, long of limb and delicate, with a long mane knotted with brambles. It bucks hard once, twice, three times, four, then _five_ , but Arthur still manages to keep his seat. His weight shifts in a way that seems almost natural, though John is sure this is not a task that could possibly be easy for any man. And yet, Arthur does it all the same, shifting and leaning and bending with the motion of the beast, all the while with one callused hand thrust high in the air. The horse trumpets out in defiance and bolts in a wide circle, coming close to brushing Arthur off on the fence. But John can also hear Arthur’s voice even from here, loud but somehow reassuring at once, and then the horse’s erratic gestures grow a little less violent, and then a little less, and a little less. 

A hand claps down on John’s shoulder and he jumps. He’s _too fucking skiddish_ today.

“John!” the familiar voice says. 

It’s Charles. John relaxes minutely, then lets go of his vice-like grip on the bar of the pen. His fingers actually ache from the release of tension. “ _Charles_.” He nods back. He hadn’t even heard Charles come up on him. Dangerous, all things considered. For a second John lifts his hat up and wipes the sweat off his brow. “Got your stuff around yonder.” He nods down the path towards the truck, but Charles has already taken an easy lean on the fence to look out towards Arthur too. 

“A fine animal.” He murmurs appreciatively. John has found that Charles is even keeled and reasonable, so he looks back out towards Arthur again too. 

“Suppose so.” He still doesn’t know shit about horses.

“You know Arthur caught her wild? That’s the old way. They’re getting friendlier, too.” 

“That’s _friendly_?” John scoffs. 

“Yeah, it is. You should have seen her when he first brought her in. She’s _wild_ , you know what I mean? Really something else. Arthur could sell her for a fortune once she’s broken, but I don’t think he would. That horse is fit for a king. He’ll keep her.” 

John is not sure he really does know what Charles means by _wild_ , so he frowns and studies the horse some more. Even in this short amount of time, he can tell she is beginning to heed Arthur’s directions, leaning wherever he wants when his knees push her this way or that way. Her gait steadies out, and he gives her the leeway to lead with her neck, stretching out however far she wants. They’re having a conversation in front of him without words. Give and take. With only a paltry bridle, John is not sure how Arthur managed to keep his seat even this long.

“He named her Boadicea. Arthur’s pretty sentimental sometimes, huh?” 

“Who’s that?” 

“A Celtic queen.” Charles dusts his hands off and stands up straight when he tires of watching Arthur ride, then he claps John on the shoulder. “Now come on, let me give you a hand with all that heavy fucking rope.” 

  
  
  
  


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Charles and John are just loading the last of the delivery into a storage shed when a door above them creaks open, and up a flight of nearby stairs old Hosea Matthews walks out onto the office’s upper deck. “Is that young Milton you have there?” He waves down at Charles, who stops up short and nods. 

“Yessir!”

“Why don’t you send him on up here when you fellas are all done!” 

“You heard the man,” Charles smacks John in the shoulder, and they work together to push the last bolt of rope into place. 

  
  


John knocks on the inside of the open office door before he enters, then respectfully removes his hat. Something about Hosea makes him want to lower his voice, though he’s not sure quite what. “You called for me, Mister Matthews?” 

“Come on in, my boy. Come on in.” 

Hosea is standing behind the desk, examining a pamphlet with a cartoonishly large magnifying glass. His eyes are going in his old age, and so it seems like he’s always squinting, but sometimes John thinks all that squinting just makes him look wiser. He takes a few steps into the office, then stands awkwardly in the center of the room. He likes old Hosea well enough, but he’s never quite sure where he stands with him. Dutch always tells John where he stands. It’s easier to talk to Dutch. 

“Sir?” 

“How d’you like your time with us so far, John?” Hosea smiles, and he sets his things back down on the surface of the desk. “Acclimating alright?” 

“..sir?” John prompts again. He has _no clue_ what that word means. 

“What I mean to say is, do you feel like you’re _getting along_ ? Fitting in? I hear you’re _quite_ the ladies’ man.” 

The question seems innocent enough, so John lets himself grin a little. “Yessir. Well, I mean, I… uh, I’m feelin _’ just fine_ , if you don’t mind me sayin’ it.” 

“Why should I mind? Dutch tells me you’re pulling your weight well enough. A useful lad, all things considered.” Slowly, Hosea lowers his old bones back down into his seat, then folds his bony fingers in a lattice on top of his paperwork. “ If you ask me, we were _blessed_ , the night we found you at the end of that rope.”

“I think so too.” John says, and it takes a moment for him to realize he actually believes that’s true. He lingers in silence on that revelation for a moment, before Hosea gets to his point. 

“You’re a good worker, John. Your performance has been more than adequate, and we’ve a need for more strong hands around here like yours. You any good with a gun?” 

John is quiet for a stunned stretch at the frankness of this question. He’s exceptionally good with a gun, but he hadn’t told that to anyone. Primarily, because he doesn’t own a gun right now. He had tried to stuff a handgun down the back of his pants on his way out of the cookhouse, but those assholes that had strung him up had taken it back, and their boss had used it to shoot Swiss cheese holes through him. 

“...Yes sir.” John carefully answers. “I’m a passable shot.” 

“Good. We need a security detail on a couple of our upcoming competitions. We got too many bodies in the stands and not enough to watch ‘em all. You comfortable with that assignment, son?” 

“Yessir.” 

“Well, ain’t that grand?” Hosea sighs, and leans back with a genuinely relieved look on his weathered face. He stares a moment at a list on his desk, his furrowed brow dipping below the navy brim of his rancher’s hat, and then he finally passes a tired hand over his eyes and leans down on one elbow. “Do me a favor, my boy. Read this list out to me, won’t you? We got a few more things to collect and these old eyes aren’t what they used to be.” 

He holds out the notepad, and John hesitates a good five seconds. 

“Well, come on now! It ain’t gonna bite you!” Hosea shakes the pad at him. John takes it and steps back, then he clears his throat. He squints, and his lips move silently over the vowels. 

“Fir… first …. Aid.... kits” John begins, haltingly slow. He can feel his ears begin to burn as one of his personal truths is revealed without his permission. He is a _terrible_ reader. “Sec...urity, security cameras. No…. ex, signs… no _exit_ signs… Bole… bo, _bolt_ , c-cutters…”

“Stop, _stop_ ,” Hosea waves his hand, and his head comes back up from where he had been leaning. “How come nobody told me you can’t read, son?” 

“I _can_ read!” John rebuts defensively, his chest full of the heat of embarrassment. He has to swallow his attitude back down. “Just..! Not… so good. _Sir_ .” He tacks on at the end, more subdued. He’s gotten along _just fine_ so far, _exactly_ how he is. Pride makes his jaw stubborn, but he feels more like a child than he has in years when Hosea gives him a parental look.

“Well, that won’t do. _That won’t do at all._ ” The old man says, and John feels a sinking sensation, until Hosea continues, “I’ll tell you what, John. I’m assigning you as my personal assistant for a while, alright? Now don’t you mind Mr. Summers, he’s got his own duties, you aren’t putting anybody out. But you and me? We are gonna meet right here, in _this_ office, three times a week, and nobody’s got to know what goes on. Nobody, you hear? Of course, unless you feel inclined to share with a friend.” 

“Sir?” 

“Well, I taught Arthur to read too, you know. And a few of the others.” Hosea begins to rifle through the drawers of his desk, but finding nothing satisfactory stands up and goes to shuffle through a nearby bookshelf instead. “...Can’t _read_. Pah.” He mutters under his breath. “A waste of a good imagination, if you ask me! We clear, Mister Milton?” 

John blinks. He hasn’t been given an offer to be educated since he left the orphanage, and that was so long ago by now that John can barely remember it. He’s a little dumbstruck, but nods anyway. “Eruhh... _yes_ sir.” 

“ _Ah-hah_ !” Finally, the old man lays a finger on a canvas book spine, then plucks it off the shelf. “Smoky the Cowhorse. Easy enough.” He hands it over to John, who takes the children’s tale and runs a slow hand over the cover, where a bucking bronco tries to rid itself of a determined looking rider. “We’ll read _that_ one first. When we get you through it, I’ll give you something better. One day we’ll get to poetry, John, and I’ll tell you what, _that’s_ the _good stuff_ ! That’s what you’ll _really_ want, my boy. Something to enrich the _soul_.” 

Again, John finds himself gummed up. His lips twist over his teeth, but eventually he just gives a gruff nod and pockets the book. Hosea had not mocked him, or put him down in any way. He had been treated with respect, and asked to pay nothing in return. John is not so sure what to do with this information, but he accepts it all the same. 

“So that settles it. Let’s say, I’ll see you again Monday?” 

John knows that this is not a question. He knows it is a plan set in stone if he likes it or not. But the thing is, John _does_ like it. He maybe likes it more than he can say. Again he gives a brusk nod, but then he coughs a little to find his voice, if only for reasons of respect. “ _Yessir_.” 

“Wonderful.” Hosea declares as he settles back down at his desk, already leagues ahead in his mind over his plans for the rest of the day. He picks up another list and squints at it. “Well, off you go. And send Charles up next, can you?”

  
  
  


It takes an hour for John to pull the delivery truck back around the bar again, in part because he stares off into the distance so hard during the drive that for a while he completely forgets where he is. When he realizes he has been driving straight for far longer than he intended, he fumbles his way through using the map again and pulls the truck around, angry at himself for getting so distracted. 

When he’s back by evening, John is greeted with friendly faces, and Bill thumps on the truck’s hood with a fist as he passes by, which is amicable enough for him. It’s nice to be known, John thinks again right then, and he pulls the little book Hosea had given him out of his pocket again. The bronco and rider on the cover are so familiar it feels like they’re old friends, and John is struck by a sudden surge of emotion. A friendly melody drifts through his cracked window, and John looks up just in time to spot Arthur walking by... John’s eyes instantly glue to his figure as he listens to the familiar sound. Arthur is whistling the first few cheerful bars of _You Are My Sunshine._ Going completely unscrutinized as he is in the moment, Arthur seems as handsome and contented as he’s ever been. Perhaps, more content even than John has ever seen him. John just looks at Arthur as he walks past, and then he looks at the book cover, and then he replaces the little book back in his pocket and he gets out of the truck again. Sleep won't come easy, he already knows that. So for now, John needs to see what errands are still left ahead of him for the night. 

  
  
  
  


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John sits out on the steps to his trailer, and he thinks. He’s enjoying a cigarette, and the halo of smoke is a comfort when it hangs in the cool air around him. It’s late enough that most of the circle of trailers lie dark. John likes it that way. He is not used to this variety of thinking, this relentless march of questions in his head he has no answers to, and he also thinks there is a reason he has headaches more and more often these days. He thinks about the suitcase full of drug money, buried in his secret place, and he thinks about the tiny golden key to that suitcase hidden beneath the peeling sole of his right deadstock brown work boot. He thinks about Dutch’s hand, warm and parental on his shoulder, but he also thinks about that flinty flicker in his eyes John knows all too well as greed. He thinks about Hosea’s selfless kindness, and John thinks about how luxurious it is to have his own bed, and food to eat, and a job to do, and companions to drink with who aren’t actively trying to fleece him while he sleeps. He thinks about Karen’s breasts and Abigail’s smart, sexy expressions that seem to say something more profound than John can understand. He thinks of her lying half naked in a trailer lit red by a sheer, gauzy cloth cast over the bed lamp, while Tilly and Mary-Beth share lines off a pocket mirror. John thinks about the grind of the open road beneath the wheels of the delivery truck, the tinny sound of Gene Autry on the radio, and how it makes him feel good to seem like he belongs somewhere for once in his fucking life, even when he knows he really doesn’t belong.That he couldn’t belong. That he _shouldn’t_. 

And he thinks about Arthur. About the graceful shape of him as the white mare’s gait evens out, and he moves with her like maybe they were born together. Actually, he thinks a lot about Arthur. 

For a while now, John has been having strange dreams. Since even before he robbed the cookhouse, he dreamed of the man in the tall black stovepipe hat. John wonders if this is just another stupid side effect of his itinerant lifestyle, living somewhere and then moving on, living and moving, then moving, then moving. He hasn’t stayed in one place this long since his days in the orphanage, and even then he knew one day he would have to leave. But now the man in the stovepipe hat is returning again more gradually in his sleep, and every dream he has is about second chances. ‘ _Don’t spoil a good second chance, mister Marston! And mark you me, that is exactly what this is!’_ the man is always saying, though John doesn’t have a fucking clue _who_ he is, or _why_ he is, or _how_ he is. Maybe the man is some latent figure from his childhood, some leftover nightmare dredge from darker times. But John just knows he can’t let himself get drafted, and so _second chances_ are all he thinks of. He doesn’t want to die for no reason in some foreign war, and anyway, if he registered with any local authorities it would either yield his instant incarceration or his instant enlistment. John doesn’t want _any_ of that bad business. But he still thinks about second chances. He is _always_ thinking about second chances. He thinks about Arthur, and he thinks about second chances. And about how it doesn’t feel like a mere coincidence that those two things seem to be running side-aside in his life. 

Something crunches and shifts in the dark, and John looks up to see Old Boy plod around the corner and wander down to huff at the cold fire pit. For a while John just sits and studies the horse, and he thinks some more about how he had seen Arthur on the wild white mare. John doesn’t know shit about horses, _but_ ... something whispers deep down in his dark insides (his insides that are the kind of dark he _likes_ , the purple nighttime kind of dark,) that maybe... _he might want to learn_. 

  
  
  


The sky has barely lit, just a slowly rising slash of warm orange moving up the azure horizon line when John finally gathers himself enough to bang on Arthur’s trailer door. There’s a noise like something crashing, before the unmetered thumping of footfalls stumble towards the door and Arthur swings it open, obviously still half asleep. He’s naked from the waist up, and his hair is a mess, but he instantly begins to sober up when he takes in who exactly has come to see him this fucking early in the morning. 

John has Old Boy in a loose lasso around the neck from a length of laundry rope he had pried off of a nearby trailer, and the horse is placidly nibbling at the back of his hair. He bats at the horse’s muzzle with distracted knuckles as Arthur takes a measured step down, his head shaking in wonderment. “Milton… _what_ , in _tarnation_ are you-?”

But John cuts Arthur off before he can even warm up to it. He finally knows what he wants. 

“Rise n’ shine, Morgan! Now, teach me to ride.” 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John learns to ride.

  
  
  


Dreams are funny. Not funny _ha-ha,_ but more like funny _odd_ , like John’s brick of a brain is trying very hard to tell him about something he forgot from a long time ago. More often than not these days, the strange man in the stovepipe hat is in his dreams, telling John, _“Don’t waste a golden opportunity, my friend! Second chances don’t always come for everyone!_ ” And John will try to chase him, only for the man’s long black overcoat and tall black hat to swirl out of reach into some passing sheet of rain. 

Other times, John dreams of childhood things; of his drunk father’s Scottish brogue, or the angular halls of the orphanage, made unnavigable by sleep logic until John is nearly crushed to the ceiling. But he also dreams more and more often of being a cowboy. Again this is likely because of his lessons with Arthur and Hosea, which are front and center in his daily life, and of course because of his proximity to the rodeo. The dreams are so intense that sometimes, John wakes up and feels a terrible sadness he can’t understand, like a life he had once lived and the people in it had all suddenly and horribly snapped out of existence. Those mornings, John sits barefoot and rumpled on the edge of his bed and he smokes a joint to take the edge off. He only begins to shake free when he thunders out of his trailer, off to begin a long day where he is hopeful he will have less troublesome thoughts to deal with in the face of hard work. 

This morning, Mrs. Adler finds John as he exits the supply closet behind the stage of the Pretty Pony, stacked up on one shoulder with crates of replacement light bulbs. But instead of barking at him and stacking three additional boxes on top of his load like usual, she helps him deposit the bulbs on the stage and gives him another task. 

“When you head down to the rodeo with that rebar, John, you be sure to tell Charles that his number’s up. You tell him it’s _his turn_ , alright? He’s gotta quit playin’ _cowboy_ and come back up here to play _war council_ awhile with old Dutch. I’m sick of it, Dutch don’t listen to _shit_ I say these last few months, and I need a day off or I swear to God I’ll shoot the next man who interrupts me right between the eyes.”

“No offence meant, ma’am, but it might’ve worked out better for you in the long run if you’d just grown a cock right between your legs. _Then_ he’d listen better, I’d recon!” 

“Please. I don’t need a _cock_ , Milton, I got me a Rough Rider.” 

John gives a shameless leer, “If I didn’t know that was a _gun_ , Mrs. Adler, then I’d be sure you was talkin’ about a-?” But Sadie smacks him before he can get the rest out. 

“Did the girls suck all your brains clear out through your crotch, John Milton, or was you just _born_ dumb as hell?” 

“I believe that’d be born dumb, ma’am,” John dodges Sadie’s next swipe and makes his narrow exit out the side door, still half a stupid grin on his face. As the door swings shut on his backside, he hears Sadie give a belated chuckle too. 

  
  


Outside, the weather is hot. John finds regular, plain old sunshine helps with _most_ things. Not much can’t be cured by the hot, dry tingle on his scalp, or the reassuring warmth across his shoulders. The dreams of this morning seem further away... John has always been a summertime kind of feller, after all. Outdoorsy, despite his times in the city. Warm is safe. Cold, he as always equated with sickness. Homelessness. Hopelessness. John is typically himself again by mid-morning if the sunshine is good, and he goes about his business with the reasonable reality that he has never been a cowboy. Bill helps him load the truck with rebar, and Javier puts his boots to work as he straps tight the nylon cinches holding them all in place. John throws his gloves in the truck bed when it is done, and he dusts his hands and he climbs up into the front seat. He is no cowboy. _He is no cowboy._ Sometimes he must whisper this to himself so he really hears it. He is only a thief, (and not a very good one at that,) and he is also a liar to boot, and he doesn’t know enough about anything to be of much help to anyone, unless he is a delivery boy, or unless he has a gun. 

The fact that his unconscious mind is suddenly so fixated on these dream things seems pointless, like God has forced John down into a chair to watch some foreign film he just can’t comprehend. What are dreams supposed to _mean_ , anyway? Nothing? Or... _something_? The truck grumbles as John palms the wheel in a slow circle, pulling over gravel and out onto the open road. Sometimes he has to tamp down his nerves with smoke and drink before sleep will even come in the first place... John imagines tonight will be another such night. 

  
  


The open road is a quietly glorious thing. The truck bumps along as the morning sun casts heat mirages up from the asphalt, warping John’s visions of the flat grassland ahead. The sky is so very blue, and so very big. Goddamn, if that isn’t the bluest, prettiest, just absolutely most gigantic bigass blue sky John has ever seen. He sure has seen some good skies in his life, but not like this. Not like this. It reminds him of something, of a feeling he can’t quite put his finger on. He is having that sensation more and more, since moving into his trailer with the Pretty Pony camp. Like he can’t quite remember something good he’s forgotten. Something… warm? A known thing? Or is it something unknown? But John is once again so godawful at sorting out his own issues that eventually he settles on _‘memory I can’t remember_ ’ and tries to leave it at that. 

  
  
  


Dreams are fickle things. Sometimes more fickle than a woman, or a bad patch of weather. They’re fickle because every now and then, John will dream of being a cowboy in a special kind of way. In that _big sky_ sort of way, where his heart beats wild with joy in his chest, and he rides hard and free across an endless stretch of open mesa. He thinks there is someone else there with him in _these_ dreams, in the _good_ dreams, and those are the times which make John recall faraway feelings like love, and of being loved. Those are the kinds of dreams he feels saddest to wake up from, because he is sure nobody has ever loved him like that, and because sometimes he even finds his hair has stuck to his face from where his eyes had smeared in the night. 

Though his cowboy dreams are often more disconcerting than they aren't, John is still never quite sure in the end if he would expunge them completely if the opportunity arose. _He is not a cowboy now_ , of course, only a deceitful liar, but on these kinds of mornings, the kind that are stacking up more and more with an alarming regularity, when the light filters in through his dirty trailer windows and he lies in bed considering all he had dreamed the previous evening, John thinks that maybe… just maybe, a cowboy is just exactly what he is _supposed to_ be. 

  
  
  
  
  


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**CHAPTER 2: THE STORM THAT WHISPERS**

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The sky is blue and cloud-streaked, but it is not nearly cloudy enough to damp out the blinding light of the mid-morning sun. John’s whole body sweats and aches as he lies on his back in the dust, until Arthur’s face cuts across his field of vision as scary and looming as a thunderstorm. 

_“Get up._ ” He demands without a hint of mercy.

“ _Christ alive_ , have some pity for once!” John groans, but he hauls himself up anyway, though he sits a minute on the ground. He’s covered in dirt and debris, and Old Boy, in full tack, wickers and tosses his head from the other side of the rodeo corral. 

“Pity’s for children.” Arthur grunts. He’s not merciful when it comes to John. Eventually he gets tired of waiting and sticks his hand out, and John hesitates only a moment before grasping it. Arthur hauls him back to his feet, then gestures at the horse.

“Well, get on with it!” 

“Hn.” John only grunts, then shuffles to obey. 

After a vigorous week of attempting to keep upright in Old Boy’s saddle, John has begun to regret his demand that Arthur teach him how to ride. Old Boy is amenable enough to John when his feet stay firmly planted on the ground, but the second John is up on his back, the horse has some other, very specific designs. Namely, he likes it best when John smashes unceremoniously back down to earth. And so, down and down and down again he goes. Again and again and again he hits the dirt, until John’s shoulder, only very recently healed, has begun to throb and ache again. He feels stiff as an old man, and even if the girls back at camp are very good at reassuring John that he is healthy, on days like this his doubts grow just about as big as a beast. He shoots Arthur a bitter look before dusting off his pants.

“Don’t give me that lip, kid,” Arthur yells after him, “You’re the only one what could put the damn saddle _on_ Old Boy in the first place, what makes you think you cain’t ride ‘im?”

“Dunno,” John grouses, more quiet than not. He reluctantly takes hold of Old Boy’s reins, his body shot through with pain and frustration. “The fact I don’t know what _the hell_ I’m doin’?” 

“And here I thought I was doin’ you a _favor_ , Milton. Ain’t this _school_ enough for you? You think I don’t have more valuable tasks ahead of me today? What d’you call this? _Playtime_?” 

“I call it _television_! A regular fuckin’ comedy goldmine!” John shouts back at Arthur, but also a little bit at everything, anger bursting out of him like a geyser. Without looking back, he sucks in a sharp breath, braces himself, and then hauls his body back up the side of the horse. 

John swings his leg over, and his foot is barely in the stirrup before Old Boy starts up again. His back legs kick out erratically as he jerks forward, and this time John makes it a full 35 seconds before the horse manages to dump him brutally on the ground again. Old Boy is off like a shot, while John finally decides to just stay down. Had he just seen the face of God? He’d flown _so high.._. 

“Quit _wastin’ my time,_ Milton!” Arthur’s groan carries across the pen on the morning breeze. Down in the dirt, John just closes his eyes.

For a while Arthur doesn't yell any more judgments, and John figures he’s finally being allowed a pitiful moment to collect himself. But then the quiet stretches on, longer, and then longer, until John finally sits up on his elbows and searches around. He’s used to a vigorous chastisement immediately after a failure. Arthur is good at a lot of things, but he’s especially skilled at hounding John when he’s down. 

Turns out Arthur is still there after all, though he’s all the way on the other side of the pen. His hands are soft on Old Boy’s nose, and he’s whispering something to the horse John can’t quite make out. But Old Boy’s lustrous tail is flicking back and forth with a sort of contented laziness, and he wickers when Arthur scratches him behind the ear. When the beast has had enough, he bumps past Arthur and goes to investigate a water bucket near the gate. 

For a while, Arthur doesn’t realize he’s being inspected. When he does, his soft look grows immediately harder, and he almost self-consciously corrects the angle of his hat. “Not all problems need a _strong_ hand, Milton.” He lectures, his chiseled jaw set square. Arthur’s shirt is very blue, but darker than the gauzy sky. He looks good in blue, John thinks, before he has to check himself on that one. Better to tuck _that_ particular notion away for later. Maybe for a time when he hates Arthur a little less than he does right now. 

  
  


“Yeah, alright, so what’s the problem? You callin’ me too strong?” The brag feels better than admitting the truth. He’s _‘too’_ a lot of things, but John is pretty sure ‘ _too strong’_ isn’t one of his problems. Maybe too wiry. Too scrappy. Spunky? Could he get points for that? 

Arthur draws almost reluctantly closer, just as Old Boy turns over the water bucket in the corner with a splash. “… _Too tense._ ” he judges after the lingering silence. 

“What is?” John’s huff unsettles some of the hair that’s stuck to his sweaty forehead. He feels _disgusting_. Dirt is surely lodged in every crack. 

“ _You_.”

John casts a look down at his own filthy clothes, and can’t quite find an argument sufficient enough to rebut this accusation. He feels very tense. Braced for impact, even. So instead he only grunts. Arthur looks at him with a measure of judgement, and eventually he sticks his hand out again. 

At first John only glowers, but when Arthur’s hand still doesn’t move, John decides after a while to take it anyway. Again he finds himself hauled to his feet as if he weighs the same as a burlap sack, and this time Arthur’s palm smacks him a few rough times, until most of the sandy sawdust has been shaken loose from his person. 

“I think that’s enough for today. Listen, kid, it ain’t always about whose _head_ is _harder_ . Sometimes, you gotta know when to _give_. It’s all about balance, not just taking.” 

“So that’s why Old Boy’s _your_ horse, huh? How’d _that_ go?” John scowls.

  
  


Without batting an eye Arthur’s hand cracks across the back of John’s scalp and he staggers forward a few steps, caught off guard. When John whips around to shoot him a furious look, Arthur is already leaning in, equally vicious. “ _You think I won’t still whup you, boy?_ Have some _goddamn_ respect.”

John knows he doesn’t stand a chance. Sometimes, Arthur can still be a real _motherfucker_. John looks away first; there’s nothing else for it. But he also makes sure not to be too meek about it. In his left ear, he hears Arthur give a long suffering sigh. 

“...Come on.” eventually Arthur says. Then he lifts his fingers to his mouth and sounds a sharp whistle for a nearby stable hand. When the boy materializes, Arthur threads his fingers into the collar of John’s shirt, already pulling them in the opposite direction. 

“Put Old Boy up, can you?” He asks the boy, who gives a nervous nod. “But watch him though, he’ll take a chunk right off your scalp if you let him! Me and Mister Milton here’ve got some _very important_ business to attend to. ”

  
  
  
  


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It isn’t even noon yet when Arthur tips a bottle of tequila over in Hosea’s empty office and fills two glasses with it, then presses one without fanfare into John’s empty hand. John just stares at it, more than a little dumbstruck, then follows suit without a word when Arthur jerks his chin and they head out to the porch and ascend another set of stairs. And then another, and then another, until Arthur kicks open a final rusty door on squeaky, brittle hinges and they’re out on the office roof.

Miles and miles of clear green and blue prairie stretch out in every direction. The wind has picked up, and it scours the sky like a comb, pulling the sheer clouds so long that they dissolve almost into nothing. The grass always feels a little like water to John, especially when it ripples in the breeze, but from up here it seems a veritable, endless ocean. The sound of grass in wind is something John is sure he will never forget either; it is both quiet and loud at once. A hiss and a whisper. Air through comb.

“Cheers, kid.” Arthur holds out his glass and John clinks his against it, though he still gives a sour frown as he brings the rim to his lips. He’s still not sure why they’re even here. 

“Quit callin’ me _kid_ , you _rotten old stump._ ” John accuses over his first sip. The tequila burns down his throat and torches up his nostrils, but you would never know it from his face. He’s proud of his poker face. He’s worked hard at it, but he abandons that toughness after a minute to give Arthur a shrewd look. 

John is finding more and more these days that Arthur responds best to statements that are straightforward. And John is surprised to realize he doesn’t find this nearly as unpleasant as he’d first assumed. “You piece of shit, all you do is rag on me! Wassamatter, ain’t you been with a woman lately? A man doesn’t clear the pipes out often enough, a man gets _sick_.” 

“Hmmm. What _should_ I call you, then?” Arthur muses, ignoring John’s rib entirely. “Ain’t a cowboy? Ain’t a kid?” 

“Told you, I’m a nobody.”

“Now, a _wanderer_ ain’t categorically a _nobody_.” 

John’s eyebrows shoot up. “You remembered I said that?” 

Arthur in turn serves back his own raised eyebrow. He’s sharper than John is. It’s hard to admit it, but there’s the truth, right there, plain as the nose on his face. Talking with Arthur so far has proven at times to be just as difficult for John as trying to keep his ass in the saddle. Not just trading insults, but talking to Arthur _for real. That’s_ the challenge. Arthur Morgan is a smart man, but smart in a different kind of way from most other men John has known. Maybe not quite _book smart_ , but he’s got a certain practicality. John never finds their conversations easy, strictly speaking, but they certainly can be rewarding. 

“Not much I _do_ forget, _junior_.” 

At this, John only sighs. 

  
  
  


Their glasses are half empty and they’re both perched on the lip of the roof, feet dangling, before John finds his voice again, awkward as it is. Sometimes he prefers the silence. Even now, he can tell Arthur is the type that prefers the silence _all the time_ . But they’ve never gone drinking together before, at least not alone like this, and John has so many questions he’s not sure where even to begin. He wonders if Arthur has taken pity on him to have taught him even this much, and he wonders if Arthur will abandon this fool’s mission to keep John in the saddle ...because, so far? It all seems to be failing. He wonders if Arthur really is sweet on Abigail Roberts like Karen had said, but most of all John wonders if asking Arthur _questions_ will be what gets him shoved off this roof right here and now. John will have to tread as carefully as he can manage, which means there is a strong probability that he will die. 

“Thanks for the drink,” he rumbles instead, testing the waters. But as expected, Arthur only tips his head to nod and doesn’t actually speak a word. 

Arthur’s profile is all hard edges, but there’s affection in his eyes when he looks out over the plains. Maybe he likes the emptiness too. He’s a _real_ cowboy, John thinks. Like from the movies. And though he’s pained to admit it, John thinks that Arthur might actually be a good man. Even to John, who has been locked in a nearly permanent spat with Morgan since day one, this truth is growing more obvious with each passing day. He’s a sour sommbitch, but _Arthur isn’t a liar_ , and this seems most remarkable of all, since John has always been sure that all men are born liars. Most especially himself. 

“You believe in second chances, Arthur?” 

John just can't help the question. He really _does_ want to know.

  
  


The wind buffets Arthur’s blue button-down, and throws his gold hair back and forth across the square stretch of his forehead. He’s taken his hat off, and his warm silhouette stands out clear and sharp against the pale sky. He looks serious. _Too serious,_ John thinks, again not for the first time. Serious as the grave. Arthur really considers his answer, before he eventually offers up a shrug and sips on his tequila. “...Mayhap.” 

It’s a disappointing answer. John sucks on his teeth and pushes harder. “If anyone would, I’d reckon it’d be you.”

_That_ catches his attention. “How d’you figure?” Arthur finally glances sideways.

“The way you handle them horses you bring in from the wild. And all that business at the Pretty Pony? The folk back at the camp, they all speak good on your name. They’re awful fond, at least from a nobody’s point of view. _They’re_ _all_ strays. So I just thought, you... probably... _liked_ strays.”

“Well, Dutch does at least. And, I suppose, Hosea too. _Useful_ ones, anyways.” Arthur grunts. Then glares. “Ones that don’t get underfoot.” 

The implication is clear, but John ignores it. Instead they sit in the quiet and watch a while as shadows slide across the rolling grass. 

“Pretty Pony’s like one big pack of strays. Nobody got a family to go home to, but they do just fine all together. All this wide open land? You’d figure they’d be much worse off.” John muses, then a sudden worry strikes him and he gives Arthur an edgy look, “There any wolves in these parts, you think?” 

Apparently John’s discomfort is funny enough to merit a snort, but Arhur only rubs his nose until it passes. “... _No_ , no. There ain’t no wolves in Oklahoma no more. Used to be, way back when… Red wolves had the roam, but they mixed in with coyotes and thinned their bloodlines ‘til they all but died out. Only _wolves_ left these days is folk.” 

  
  


“...Why’d you say yes to me, Arthur?” 

At that, again Arthur falls quiet. 

Why has Arthur taken them here? Why is he talking, and accepting, and almost _smiling_ , when he is usually anything but any of these things? The lingering question makes Arthur frown, and then he stuffs his hat back on his head as if he really had forgotten about all that morning’s failures up until this moment.

“...Listen, kid-” 

But John breaks across him, “-You didn’t have to. Don’t take no offence to this, but I half-expected you to find some outhouse and stick me in my early grave. The _hour_ I came bangin’ on your door? Jesus, _I_ woulda murdered me.”

“ _Yeah_ , well. You’re slippery enough. Don’t need _me_ tryin’ to end it for you when likely you already got a whole damn _world_ of fellers out there already on the case.” 

It seems like a joke. But the question itself is still _uncomfortable_ for some reason. For both of them. They spend some time in silence and John nods, then polishes off the rest of his tequila. He can’t imagine what Arthur must have seen when he had come to beg for riding lessons, what crazed expression must have been on John’s face as the sun cracked over the horizon, with his mouth full of demands and his fist grasping a laundry line as a lead instead of a bridle around a stray horse’s neck. A horse he _still_ can’t ride. 

“But w _hy_ ?” he asks again. He wants to know _._ It’s alarming, he thinks, how badly he _needs to know._

  
  


Arthur rubs a hand across his chin and John can hear his bristles crackling. For a while it seems as if Arthur might not even know the actual answer himself, but then he rumbles, “...Curiosity.” 

“Curious? How’s that? About what?” 

After yet another silence, John’s ears start to burn. He stares out over the prairie and thinks that he must sound like some pathetic little boy, gone to yank on his big brother’s coat tails. What’s with all his stupid questions? This conversation is ungainly, filled with too many awkward holes and empty spaces. He begins to fear that he has asked something truly stupid and is considering backtracking entirely before he finally looks back over at Arthur again; and he’s shocked to find that Arthur is already examining him. 

Very closely. 

John flinches back a little, because Morgan is at least close enough to smell the tequila on his breath. 

This is a different kind of look from the suspicious ones John is used to from most men. Especially from Arthur, who is always glaring at him, or telling him off, or telling him what to do. In actual fact, there’s no suspicion in this look at all. Instead, there are Arthur’s blue eyes, moving quick, then slow. The drink has done him some good. The rest of Arthur is calm and immobile as a boulder as he examines what feels like John’s every crevice. Arthur traces John’s hairline with his eyes, following the line of his neck, his shoulders, then slips back up to his face again. Arthur’s mouth is a soft, short line. Not clenched tight with nerves or impatience like John might expect on a normal day, but only held still in a wordless pause. 

“I reckon...” Arthur muses, and John holds the moment in his chest. He is sure he will remember this for the rest of his life. “… it’s because _Old Boy_ gave you the chance first.” 

  
  


“ _Oh._ ” 

  
  


Oh.

Oh? Is ‘ _oh’_ really all he can muster? John has never felt more sure he is an idiot than right now. His tongue feels heavier than usual, and he looks off over the prairie again and tries to take a sip on his empty glass. When he finds it empty, he sets it down a little harder than he means, and Arthur gives another judgemental snort. 

“Plus, if I’d had to watch your ass hit the dirt another dozen times without a stiff drink in my hand, I might’ve just shot you to put us _both_ out of our misery. _Jesus_ , Milton, you’re _godawful_.”

“ _Thanks_... You know, I heard a student’s only as good as his teacher.” 

All at once the tension breaks, and Arthur actually _laughs_ . That sound alone is enough to send a tremor down John’s spine, like prickles from an icicle. John’s hands ball into fists in his lap. _So…_ Arthur _can_ laugh. 

He swallows his surprise down and pushes it behind his poker face. There’s not much else for it. So John just listens to Arthur sigh, the kind of full-body sigh where his spine sags a little, and then Morgan slaps his knees and clambers back to his feet. John is still too tongue-tied to do anything other than glance back over his shoulder, and Arthur’s hand unexpectedly comes down and rumples John’s greasy hair. It is a little brotherly, and a little demeaning, and a little affectionate all at once. That is the moment John is dumbstruck for sure, because Arthur’s hand is just as callused and just as strong as John had imagined, and he shrinks away a little out of habit, but not with even an ounce of abhorrence. Nobody had ever touched him in such a way. 

“Okay, kid. Here endeth the lesson.” Arthur concludes with a rare, unmalicious grin, and then he ambles back towards the staircase. When he is gone and John is left alone again, John knows Arthur has moved on to his next chore for the day, and then to the next, and the next. So John stays put, exactly where he is. There will be no more horseback riding until tomorrow. 

John sits alone on the roof awhile and just looks off across the ocean of green. He might be a stupid fool, or maybe he was just born slow, but John thinks he knows danger well enough when it appears in front of him. The way John’s scalp still tingles from Arthur’s touch is as good a sign as any. 

  
  
  
  


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Bullets whiz through the air like tiny meteors. They pang off of the jagged cliff face and leave red, welted marks as John climbs for his life, his revolver hand clutched to a bullet wound which had long since grazed his rib cage too deep for comfort. He can feel hot blood trickling down his side beneath his shirt, and his hair is foul and dry as it sticks to his parched lips. Behind him, Arthur gasps and comes to a ragged halt, leaning hard on the face of the rock. 

This is a much stranger dream than most. 

“Alright, Arthur, come on, lets go!” John shouts, but Arthur only waves him away, bent down and winded. He looks different than he does at the rodeo, but, the same too. Thinner. _Older_. 

His voice rattles, thicker than soup. Weaker than sand. “You go.” 

“Keep pushin’, Arthur!”

“No. No, I think I pushed all I can…” 

_“Come on_ ,” Arthur is not allowed to stay here. He’s got to keep moving. He can’t give up. He _cannot give up. “_ Arthur! _”_

“You go.” 

“We ain’t got time for this, not now!” John bursts out, and turns to plead in desperation with his exhausted brother. Arthur is already waxy as the grave, despite the sheen of sweat slicking his handsome face. 

Arthur looks up, and something is so settled in his eyes that it makes John’s bowels quake. He’s suddenly afraid. He is so afraid. 

“... _We ain’t both gonna make it._ ” Arthur murmurs, and his voice is kind, despite the world falling down around their ears. He staggers forward a step, and then he removes his hat and settles it firmly on John’s head. The hand is callused and strong as ever, and John feels the touch shoot everywhere, to the extreme ends of his body. Every fingertip, every hair follicle is Arthur, all in a single moment. John finds the lump in his throat is too large to swallow. He only knows he musn’t cry. He could never shame Arthur like that. 

“Go, now. It would mean... _a lot_ to me. _Please_. There ain’t no more time for talk.” 

_“-John-”_

“Arthur… you… you’re my brother.” 

_“-John? In tarnation? Go get me a bucket!”_

“I know.” 

_“Chist on a crutch, JOHN!”_

Ice cold water splashes across John’s face and he sits up with a gasp. He’s on the floor of Karen and Tilly’s trailer. At first all he can do is flop around and rake at his wet face in surprise, before he rolls back over and realizes he is naked, wearing only a single sock that’s hanging half off his foot. His leg is the only part of him still propped up over the edge of the bed. Tilly peers over the mattress with a half-suppressed giggle, while Karen stands boldly above them both, having just dumped a freezing quart of ice water over John’s head. 

“ _Wha happened_ ?” John sputters, wiping himself as best he can. It’s too late, he’s slick as a drowned cat. Water is in his _ears_. 

“You was havin’ a _nightmare_! Just about kicked us both out of the damn bed! The hell’d Arthur do to you?” 

“ _Arthur_ ?” the indignant retort automatically supplies itself, “Why’d I have a nightmare about _that_ sommbitch?”

Dreaming about Arthur would be ridiculous, even for John. He puts a woozy hand to his head. 

_Wouldn’t it?_

“Well _I don’t know_ ,” Karen enunciates, making it clear she doesn’t give a shit either way. She’s easily pissed off when her sleep gets disturbed. “Maybe he kicked you so hard you had a flashback to your childhood? Get up off the floor for Godsake, and get back in bed or go home! Christ Jesus Almighty up in heaven, we thought you was dyin’!”

“Not me!” John argues back, then rolls over and starts fumbling across the floor for his pants. Tilly giggles again when he finds them, then makes a valiant effort to kick back into his jeans while still partially blind from sleep and shock and wet. The slick whip of his saturated hair smacks him in the eyes. 

“I don’t care who, it’s too _goddamn late!”_

Somewhere through the trailer wall, everyone hears Abigail’s angry voice shouting from her own trailer nearby, “ _Christ, Karen, shut your trap already!_ ” and John stumbles out the door alone, still half stupid from the entire debacle. Tilly’s laughter follows him all the way out. 

“... _Fuck_ ,” John mutters as he shuffles down the walk towards his own bed, one hand still at his eyes. He whips the water off and grumbles in the dark. It must be well past two. He feels like something huge has just been lifted off his chest. What had he been dreaming about again? 

...Arthur, right. _About Arthur._

When he passes the fire pit, black and cold, John pauses and looks back over his shoulder. Across camp, he can just spy Arthur’s trailer in the distance. A light is on, and one of his windows still glows a soft gold. It’s a familiar color, like an ember burning low. 

What could Morgan possibly be up to, so late at night? John has learned that Arthur is a man of habit, who rises early, works long hours, and puts himself to bed only when he has seen to everyone else first. It makes no sense to see him burning the midnight oil while the gang is quiet, and John wonders if maybe he had only fallen asleep with the light on. A little like a kid, John thinks. Or maybe, _John_ had been the one to wake him up with his own ridiculous hullabaloo. 

The impulse to knock on his door is momentarily unbearable. 

But that would be crazy. John snorts to himself for even thinking it. He is already in hot water for his early morning stunt with Old Boy, he doesn’t want to make a habit out of something that could easily get him killed. Arthur would knock his block off. Plus, John is pretty sure his threesome from earlier in the night was loud enough to get some attention, and though he isn’t ashamed of it, something in John thinks he might not be too well received right now, dream ruckus or no dream ruckus. 

“ _Yeah, well… mind your own goddamn business._ ” John grouses into the empty air, halfway into an argument that doesn’t even exist yet. When he realizes he’s talking to nobody, half-naked in the dark, he has the decency at least to feel a little bit embarrassed, and so he finally turns towards his trailer and his bed. 

Maybe he had dreamed of Arthur. Maybe that dream had been sadder than the others. But John is not such a fool that he would think that a dream could ever be real. 

  
  
  
  


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“Make me no grave within that quiet place, where friends shall sadly view the grassy mound. Politely solemn for a little space, as though the spirit slept beneath the ground. For me no sorrow, nor the hopeless tear; No chant, no prayer, no tender eulogy: I may be laughing with the gods- while here you weep alone. Then make no grave for me, but… lay me where the pines, austere and tall…. sing in the... wind that-” 

John abruptly snaps the book closed, and Hosea looks up. At first, the old man only frowns at him from behind his broad pine desk, but then the look gentles and he gestures for John to continue. 

“Nearly there! Your pronunciation is _remarkably_ improved, son, I must say. Why not a bit more?”

John gives a tight, shallow groan, then bites his lip. “...I dunno. This one, it just… it ain’t no good, sir, and that’s what I think. I don’t like it a bit.”

_“Isn’t any good_ , John. And I’m sure you don’t think that’s true. You haven’t even finished it yet!” 

“ _Isn’t_ any good.” he accepts Hosea’s correction with a frown, but John’s head still bends down to look at the book, shifting uneasily from hand to hand. 

Hosea’s reading lessons have been regular as clockwork, and if there is anything John can be proud of, it is the secret revelation that at least one person on this earth does not think he is a complete waste of effort. John is not used to being regarded as not having _shit-for-brains_ , and so he has tried _very hard_ during these secret lessons, if only to make Mr. Matthews proud. But making up progressively more inventive stories to cover up for his regular absences from camp is soon sure to get him into trouble. So it is only when Hosea has graduated John finally to poetry that he starts thinking it is time to be done with these lessons for good. That, and John finds that this particular poem is upsetting. 

It feels like a blade of ice in his chest, and John is not so sure why he hates it as completely as he does. He figures it just settles wrong. It prickles and irks. Most of Hosea’s poetry is about subjects John doesn’t really understand, but this poem in particular is almost frightening in its familiarity. He feels like he has heard it before, when he knows for a fact that this is definitely untrue. So why does he feel like this? If he has not heard this poem, then he has lived it somehow. Somewhere… he’s been there, sometime before. He’s just a dunce not to remember when. 

“You’re doing just fine.” Hosea reassures John with a gentle tone, who is standing stock still in the center of the office like a stunned mannequin. “Let’s not disrespect Mr. Henry Herbert Knibbs. So finish it up if you please!” 

When Hosea stares at him expectantly, John’s fingers, damp with sweat, curl around the spine of the book. His face twists as his brain fries itself on any argument he might rebut with, before he figures fighting just isn’t worth it. What could there be to fear from a poem? None of these fancy words are meant for John anyway, they’re for smart old coyotes like Hosea, who can figure out what they mean a hell of a lot better than an idiot thief. With reservations, he cracks the book open again to rediscover his lost page. John clears his throat once, and then gravels out the rest of it. He _hates_ this poem, he thinks again, even more bitterly... even just looking at the letters on the page, even just knowing the page exists, even if he doesn’t understand at all why that might be. 

“Then make the grave for me, and lay me where the pines, austere and tall, sing in the wind that sweeps across the West: Where night, imperious, sets her coronal of silver stars upon the mountain crest. Where dawn, rejoicing, rises from the deep, and life, rejoicing, rises with the dawn: Mark the spot upon the sunny steep, for with the morning light I shall be gone.” 

  
  
  


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Daddy had always been a spitfire; John remembers that the most about his father. He remembers the way his daddy’s thick Scottish accent had often gotten fellers looking at him through suspicious, squinted eyes. How his daddy’s attitude had always been too big to fit comfortably inside his skin. Dutch reminds John a little bit of his father, come to think. Or, what he can remember of him anyhow. 

John remembers only a little of the time before the orphanage, before a knife to the eye one night in a bar had finally taken John’s daddy home. Not back home to Scotland again like he’d always wanted, but home to that great big valley in the sky. They had been a bible reading family from time to time, just the two of them, if you could ever call that a _family_ , but not many lessons from that book had ever crept into regular life. John figures, no matter how ugly a feller goes out, if it’s a knife in his eye or old as hell in his sleep, if he’s expecting the Lord to meet him on the other side then dying can’t be all _that_ bad, even if heaven or hell ended up not being real. 

A lot more life had happened after daddy. John is _mostly_ comprised of memories of _after_. He hadn’t cared for the orphanage, same as they hadn’t cared much for him. Parting ways had been one of the easiest decisions John had ever made, even as a kiddo, and to this day he is still a man who often confuses what is right simply with what he wants. John is used to this line getting blurrier the further along in life he goes, and until very recently he had resolved to follow his intuitions and desires above all else, dumb as he has proven himself to be. Greed rules most men, but John is simple in that he only lusts for simple things. He wants a roof over his head, and a warm body to sometimes keep him company, and he wants money to make sure these first two things are never too far away. He has not given much credence to thoughts of morality in some time, except whenever he has a gun in his hand, because out of all things that tool is too sharp for him to be too careless. But he is not often with a gun these days, though he thinks this will change soon enough, and he is not entirely looking forward to the day when morality will once again request he make his own decisions that are supposed to not be stupid.

John thinks of bottles and birds, both some of his easiest targets from when he had first wandered wild and free, jumping from train to train across the country as a vagabond teenager. A lesson from a homeless veteran and an FN Barracuda pressed into his palm had made the difference. That old man is dead now, but John had gone on living, and kept the gun until it had been stolen from him one drunken night in Tupelo. A local officer had paid John to rectify an argument with those same fellers a few days after, under the bar of the law, and with a new gun furnished by his pig employer John found there was actually something he was good at that not even his father could take away from him; Turns out, John is _very_ good at _killing_. 

John supposes that he likes killing well enough. Especially if the hit is an asshole and the money is really good. For a while he wondered why he couldn’t just kill well in Vietnam and help his country win the war, but that would require him to have a drop of patriotism first, and though John loves the American landscape just as passionately as any blue-blooded bible-thumper, he doesn’t believe in paying taxes, and he can’t stand the idea of registering a permanent address. Going to jail is also a concern, of course, but then, he’s always worried about that. So he has tried not to think too hard about any one job further than the day he’s done with it. It has taken him far enough in life, and put hundreds in his pocket when he could stand to do the work. He just tries not to dwell too hard, because he knows he’ll likely find some scrubby street urchin that’s been left alone on the other side of any given job, just like John had once been left. So he thinks it’s always better not to look. 

Time passes real quick. But it’s slow, too. John changes, but the world always seems to stay just the same. If he’s dodging the draft or pulling the trigger with a Smith and Wesson pressed into some skinhead’s jaw, there’s always more and more, exactly like his last mark. Dirty cops, clean cops, thieves, gangsters, drug dealers, helpless bystanders. A long time ago, John resigned himself to living like this. Just like this, bouncing from hit to hit, never staying anywhere long enough to put down roots. Never knowing anyone... and nobody ever knowing him. But a man needs money to stay alive, and not every hit is created equal. Sometimes, jobs are few and far between, and John gets hungry, and he gets tired, and he gets anxious, and he gets angry. He cinches his belt too tight and clenches his teeth and looks for work wherever he can get it, and these exact circumstances are what lead him, fourteen and a half grueling months ago, into the office of a certain yellow-grizzled bastard by the name of Micah Bell.

John is pretty sure by now that meeting Micah was the exact moment when the world first started to change around him, instead of just changing John himself. And so he wonders, even now, if it isn’t Micah he should be thanking for first tying the noose around his neck. The bruises have faded and his shoulder is back in working order again, sure, but John still knows the truth. Deep down in his soul, he knows; At some point, John will have to change the world too. Because a noose isn’t something a man forgets. 

  
  
  
  


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When John hits the ground for the sixth time that day, Arthur sighs and drops his forehead into his palm. 

Today the rodeo seems quieter than normal. The staffing is limited between shows, and Arthur has insisted that these lessons take place _only_ during hours when he isn’t already occupied with other important business. But after so many days of the same, of John letting himself get smashed into the dirt again and again by Old Boy’s uncooperative attitude, they are both beginning to feel more than a little sore about the entire situation, no matter who is there to see it happen.

“You got rubber bones, kid.” Arthur laments, still into his palm, and John groans as he forces himself back up into the sitting position in the center of the corral. 

“...Sure don’t _feel_ like rubber.” He counters under his breath, and flinches when his shoulder gives another sharp pang. John is honestly surprised he hasn’t broken anything. He wonders a little if Arthur had been right from the beginning, and John was simply never meant to seat a horse. Or at least, not _this_ horse. The fact that Arthur is still here is a miracle, and even though John keeps trying, he is not entirely sure Arthur’s resolve will last as long as his own. 

Old Boy is in full tack as usual, and takes an easy trot around the perimeter of the fence before circling back to lean down and lip at John’s shirt. He is easy enough a creature when John is on the ground, and this all seems a test more and more every day that John is confronted with this confounding animal. He reaches up and pats the horse’s neck, and Old Boy snorts affectionately and digs his nose into John’s armpit, almost knocking him over again. How is it possible he should be so sweet one minute, and so sour the next? “Stubborn bastard,” John groans, and uses the horse to pull himself back up to his feet. 

“Ain’t him.” Apparently Arthur has recovered enough to criticize again. “It’s _you_ , Milton. He don’t like what _you’re_ doin’.” 

“And what’s _that_ , exactly?” The complaint is more than half exhaustion. “He don’t like me feedin’ him? Brushin’ him? Tryna sit still and let im’ get used to me when I’m in the saddle?” 

He only shakes his head. “ _Somethin’_ ain’t right.” 

It’s the afternoon and Arthur is handsome in the heat. His hat drops a blue shadow down over the serious crest of his brow, and he looks thoughtfully at man and horse, like he’s trying to figure out a complicated jigsaw puzzle that’s missing some pieces. One of his callused hands goes up and he traces his stubble as he thinks, and John subconsciously whets his bottom lip with his tongue. 

“Tack.” 

“Huh?” 

“It’s too much. Take his bridle off. Saddle too.” 

John takes a step back, affronted. “How the _hell_ am I supposed to ride this goddamn horse without no saddle on him? I don’t wanna _die_ for this, Morgan!” 

Arthur gives John a lingering, judgemental look, then silently heads for the corral gate. A long coil of waxy rope has been slung around the post there, and he takes it up easily and throws it over one shoulder. “He don’t trust you. You feel too peculiar to him, your center’s off.”

“My what?” 

“ _Gravity_ , dumbass. Your _balance_.” Arthur turns back, then jerks his chin at John to get going with the task he’d been given. Reluctantly, John reaches for Old Boy and begins un-cinching his saddle. “Your center of gravity. That’s your problem. You ain’t found your legs yet.” 

“And how’s bareback ridin’ gonna help with that?” John grouses, even as he hauls the saddle off the horse, then sets it over the nearby bars of the fence. He starts working at the buckles of Old Boy’s bridle next, until the horse is naked. Old Boy shakes out his mane and whinnies, pleased with this unexpected freedom. Nearby, inside the barn, several other stalled horses trumpet aloud in gleeful reply. 

When he sets a confident hand on the horse’s neck, Arthur only shakes his head and grins in that way he has that John still can’t quite decide if he loves or hates; that smarmy way of his. A grin that says _‘you’re an idiot’’_ just as much as it says ‘ _things will be fine_ ’. 

“...Oh, you ain’t ridin’ _bare_.”

With one tough hand, Arthur shoves the coil of rope directly into John’s chest, who stumbles back half a step. “ _The hell?_ ”

But Arthur is all confidence now, less smarmy and more strong shoulders and calm eyes, in that way John has seen him with rowdy horses and calves gone astray. He looks like he’s decided on an idea he likes, and that, all by itself, has a calming effect John had not quite been expecting. He blinks in silence and waits for Arthur to tell him what to do. 

  
  


“Alright, kid, you ready? Today’s the day you’re gonna learn what it means to be a _real_ cowboy.” 

  
  
  
  


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The dream comes back again, like an old friend John can’t admit he hates. 

  
  


Sunset slowly creeps up the side of the mountain, chasing the brothers as they make their desperate escape. 

“Alright, Arthur, come on, lets go!” John shouts, but Arthur staggers to a halt and only waves him away, bent down and winded with a hand against the rock. He’s old, John has to remember. He’s _so old_ now. God, when did Arthur get so old? He’s _frail_. Like John could smash him into a thousand pieces on the orange face of the mountain.

His sick brother’s voice rattles, parched as paper. Weak as cicada wings. “You go.” 

John is furious and terrified in turn. He _hates_ this dream. “Keep pushin’, Arthur!”

“No. _No_ , I think I pushed all I can…” 

_“Come on_ ,” Arthur is absolutely not allowed to stay here. If he stays here, he’ll die. Arthur will _die_ , and then he’ll be _gone_ . He _cannot give up. “_ Arthur! _”_

“You go.” 

“We ain’t got time for this, not now!” John bursts out, and turns to plead in desperation with his exhausted brother. Arthur looks back at him with an equal plea, but this one begs to let John let death come and take him away. He is so _tired, now_ . And he’s old. _Old old old_. Tired and old. Arthur looks up, and something is so settled in his eyes that it makes John feel it physically, like he’s already half howling in grief. John has been howling in actuality for months, but Arthur’s the only one who ever really listened. 

“... _We ain’t both gonna make it._ ” Arthur is kind, despite the world falling down around their ears. He’s always been kind. Even when he was annoyed or angry, he had been fair. It’s more than John is worth. 

Arthur staggers forward a step. He’s already a skeleton for Godsake, he’s worn down barely to nothing now, but he still removes his hat, and then he settles it firmly on John’s head. The hand is callused and strong as ever, and John feels the touch shoot everywhere, to the extreme ends of his body. Every fingertip, every hair follicle is Arthur. John finds the lump in his throat is too large to swallow. He only knows he mustn't cry. He can't, because he knows what that would do to Arthur. How it would make him suffer when all he’s begging for is the dignity only John is capable of giving him; to finally let him rest. 

“Go, now. It would mean... _a lot_ to me. _Please_. There ain’t no more time for talk.” 

“Arthur… you… you’re my brother.” 

  
  


“I know.” 

“...You’re more than that. To me… you were…?” Tears are not an option and so John looks away when he can’t stand it anymore. He will not cry. He can’t. 

“I know that, John.” Arthur whispers, softer. His voice is shredded near to nothing. 

“If I could take it back… If I could do it over again... _I’d do it, you hear me?_ I’d do it _right,_ next time. I’d save you.”

Arthur only grins at that, his lips wet with blood. One hand claws thoughtlessly into his chest where the black tar pools in his lungs. Poison collects there. And chancelessness. Sunset finally eclipses Arthur, and he is swallowed up by a deep and radiating red. 

“Just get the hell outta here, Marston. You already did.” 

  
  
  
  
  


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Sunset always leaves John a little sad. He can’t quite figure it, how the blazing hot day receding into cool night could give him such a feeling, but lately he’s more off than usual. His sleep has been patchy, and since failing Arthur’s latest riding lesson, his morale has suffered. John likes the safety of the dark, but the death of his other love, daytime, when the sun sinks into the endless stretch of prairie grass, is still always a time when he’s a little more melancholy than he understands. 

Maybe, he’s feeling particularly put off by the sunset this evening because John loves the way the noontime sun makes his skin feel too much. Or because he knows what the opposite feels like too, to be shivering alone in some godforsaken doorway full of wet newspaper, and the stink of human shit. He likes Oklahoma more than he thought he would, but sunsets are bigger here, because _everything_ is bigger, and proportionately John’s moods seem to echo in size too. Sometimes he’s sadder when the sun goes down than he can say. He feels a lot of things since coming to the Pretty Pony camp. John never knew before now that this many feelings had _ever_ existed. 

  
  


“Penny for yer thoughts?” 

When he looks down from his seat up on the roof of his trailer, John spots Abigail standing at his door. She’s looking up at him with half a clever grin, her face bathed in pink just as twilight hits. He likes Abigail Roberts very much. She’s keen-eyed and as fine figured a woman as you could ask for. But John is afraid that she sometimes seems a little more trouble than she’s worth... This he knows; He has _always_ been a fool when it comes to reckless relationships. 

“Huh? You want a penny?” 

John doesn’t understand her turn-of-phrase. _A penny for what?_ Why does it always feel like everybody in the gang is _smarter_ than he is? Well, everyone except for Bill Williamson, who’s too loud to be subtle. Or, John supposes there’s that smelly old man Mrs. Adler keeps calling _‘Uncle,’_ as if it weren’t some kind of insult. He’s _gotta_ be higher up on the gang pecking order than Uncle. 

Abigail sighs. “I’m askin’ what’s on your _mind_!” 

“...What?” 

She must think him a proper idiot. Even if he could explain to her the shape of a feeling, even if he could describe it to _himself_ , John is sure he could never say those things out loud. He’s too block-brained for any of that. “Huh. Just… Sunset’s nice.” He settles on something truth-adjacent. Abigail only rolls her eyes. 

“Well then, make some space up there, would you?” She says, and then she vanishes around back,and hauls herself up the rusty trailer’s ladder. After a few muffled thuds, she’s spilling out over the roof lip nearby. She rucks up her skirt and stands, revealing strong, smooth calves and sturdy shoes, then she clomps over to John and takes a seat next to him. He doesn’t move when she arranges herself, then scoots a little closer than is strictly warranted. 

The camp is alive with evening drama, spread out like a map below them. The sky is red as Pearson stokes the fire pit, a crate of beers sitting by his knee at the ready. He loves to drink and hear stories, an activity John is finding he is growing fond of too. A few of the girls have a hand crank radio and are taking turns revving it up before Karen begins to tune through the stations they can catch, which out here have always been few and far between. The Reverend is arguing with Bill about the morality of pornography, and just as the radio catches an AM frequency of Woodie Guthrie, John notices with a hitch of surprise that Hosea is in camp too, which is rare these days since his superior lodgings are at the rodeo. He’s easygoing enough, his wide-brimmed hat cutting off the view of most of his face, except for his wrinkled smile, and his hand is gentle on Lenny’s shoulder. Lenny has a duffel bag slung over his suit jacket, and Mary-Beth comes up and offers him a mug of something hot to drink as they talk amicably by the footpath towards the far end of camp. 

  
  


“What’s got you so gummed up, you troublemaker?” Abigail asks easily. She bumps his shoulder, and John only gives half an effort grinning back. He just shrugs, which makes Abigail push him harder. “C’mon, don’t be a stranger! You been tight-lipped as a clam these last few days.” Her smile falters a little, “...You ain’t… thinkin’ of... _headin’ on._.? Now that you’re all healed up?” 

“...Mayhap.” John grunts enigmatically, but only because he wants to come off as cool and mysterious. The problem is, lately he really has been gummed up as all hell, and he isn’t sure he wants to leave at all. _Maybe ever_. But he still thinks about it every day. He thinks of the suitcase of money he has hidden, and how all he needs is a truck and a day left to his own devices, and then he could be clean away from this place and half a million dollars richer for it. But he hasn’t left, and that hurts his head too, since it’s hard to comprehend trading money and freedom for grunt work and scorn; most specifically, the scorn of one feller in particular, who has been none too pleased so far with John’s extremely limited capacity to learn how to ride a horse. Granted, a particularly troublesome horse. 

Again, Abigail bumps her shoulder into his, and when he continues to ignore her, she knocks her shoe against the tip of his boot. Finally he relents and looks her way. Her hair is loose today and frames her dark eyes and her heart-shaped face. She’s very pretty. John thinks again that Abigail is the most beautiful woman he has seen in a very long time, not only because her body is shapely, but more because she has this way about her. She’s got a shade behind her eyes like she knows something big and important, which for John, who hardly feels competent on a regular day, is very attractive indeed. Oftentimes John wishes he had more people in his life who he could trust to tell him what to do. 

Abigail doesn’t seem fooled by him in the least. Can she really read him so easy? “That so?” she murmurs with amusement. 

John shakes his head. He’s not thinking of leaving. Maybe ever. “No, ma’am. In _truth_ ? I ain’t really thinkin’ that. Not _yet_ , anyhow.” 

She’s too smart for him, he admits to himself. Just like with Arthur, there’s very little point in trying. 

“ _Good_.” Abigail leans in closer. She smells sweet, like wood smoke and grass, and old perfume from hours and hours ago, under a layer of salty sweat. “Everybody else here’s no fun! It’d be a real shame to lose such a valuable new toy. You drinkin’ tonight?”

Something twinkles flirtatiously in her eyes, and John can’t help but like it. Like _her_ . He likes it when things are easy to understand, and sometimes, like this, she makes it _real_ easy for him. At first he doesn’t say anything, but now that they are looking at one another he finds himself almost unconsciously leaning into her space. Not for the first time, he wonders again if Arthur Morgan really was sweet on her. Why wouldn’t he be? Or maybe more importantly, he wonders if she’s the one that’s still sweet on him.

“...Abigail, _are you..?_ ” But before he can get to it, a trailer door bangs open and Dutch’s voice booms loud across the camp. 

“After _all_ these _years_ , son, you’d think you would still have _a little faith in me_ ! I ask for so _very little_ from you and in return you still _insist_ upon-- no, Hosea, I don’t think _lowering my voice_ would do any-- _enough_ ! _Both of you!_ ” Dutch is outside of Arthur’s trailer with both his hands in the air, one warding off Arthur and the other against Hosea. “We decided _months_ ago, now who among you is a coward and who is comin’ _with_ me like a man?” 

There is something threaded through with ugly nerves about Arthur. Even from this far away, it makes John sit up straighter from his perch. He leans forward, as if that might somehow clarify the situation. “What’s _that_ all about?” he rasps, and now it’s Abigail’s turn to grow unusually quiet. 

When she doesn’t say anything, he looks sideways at her again. Even to John, who is no good at most things with people other than fucking or killing them, he can tell there’s something there. 

“What?” He barks, and now it’s Abigail’s turn to shrug. 

“Who knows? Some plan of Dutch’s or another.” She looks off down the camp towards Arthur’s trailer. “Those fellers have known each other for a _long time_ , you know. A real long time. Who knows what business goes on between fathers and sons?” 

John has heard rumors of this. That a lifetime ago, Dutch was the one to scoop Arthur up out of destitution and give him a purpose. Very much in many ways like Dutch had done for John. The feeling of sharing something _that_ common with Arthur is... unusually comforting. It is only the way Abigail has said it that gives him pause. So he finally goes ahead and asks what he has wanted to, since trying to be tricky is likely more trouble than it’s worth. 

“Tell it to me straight, Abigail. What’s between you and Arthur? I ain’t in the business of cookin’ up no trouble. Especially when I cain’t even tell that’s what I’ve been doin’!”

At least Abigail has the decency to look sheepish. She turns her face half away, but John can see her pretty cheeks are dusted pink, and her fingers work in her lap on bits of her skirt. “...Oh, that’s _old_ business, John. Things ain’t been like that with Arthur for years.”

So she _had_ been involved with him. Something in John’s stomach twists and sinks, and he casts his eyes back out to Arthur in the distance. Arthur is in white again today, so his broad shoulders pop against the metal siding of the trailer as he argues more quietly now with Dutch and Hosea. 

“Old business, you said. What happened?” 

He wants to know. _Why_ does John want to know so _badly_? Lately, John is so conscious of Arthur it’s starting to get painful. 

Abigail sighs into her lap, and John can practically hear her chewing on her answer. “...What always happens.”

This answer is not good enough. It is not good enough by far. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Lord, John Milton, you’re a real piece of work! I swear. Zero to a million questions in a second flat?” 

John twists in his seat and grabs hold of Abigail’s arm. He doesn’t mean to. He’s not even sure why he’s done it, only that her arm is suddenly in his hand, and he’s squeezing her like he needs to know bad enough it’ll cause him harm otherwise. What had happened!? 

“ _Did he hurt you?_ ” 

At first Abigail only gawks at him, but then she starts to laugh. John is stunned enough that he lets her pull her arm free, and she’s still grinning when she says, “No, you fool! I set him aside.”

Out of everything, this makes the least amount of sense. John feels like his brain has fried a wire. Or maybe six. “ _You_ did?” He simply can’t believe it. 

Finally Abigail gets annoyed. “ _Yes_ , John, _I_ did. Don’t sound so surprised! You’d think I was helpless the way you’re lookin’ at me!” 

_But who would ever set aside Arthur?_ The indignant thought only strikes John after a minute, and he has to blink into the void for a few seconds to get a handle on himself. He’s got that reversed. Who _wouldn’t_ at least think of setting Arthur aside, as sour as he is? He _hates_ Arthur, doesn’t he? And John is still inclined to think that Arthur very much hates him back. What they have now is more of a… mutual cooperation. John frowns, and tries not to think of his dreams any more than he already has. 

“Oh, don’t look so bushwhacked.” Abigail groans. “I’m a grown woman, you’ve seen it yourself.” 

“Yeah, I _seen_ it alright.” No doubts there. He’s seen a _lot_ of Abigail, and until incredibly recently (fifteen seconds recently,) he’d been very interested in seeing a whole lot more. 

“Don’t tell me you’re _jealous_?” 

“What now?” 

Something on his face must reveal him, because John sits up straight when Abigail starts to grin like a cat with a fat bird in its teeth. “Good God above, you _are_ jealous!” Her laughter is a little mocking, “Well, ain’t that sweet? I suppose I oughtta be flattered, but you shouldn’t bother. I told you, that business is long since over and done with. We made our peace already. So quit it with that face, why don’t you?” 

John’s insides keep twisting. Twisting and twisting around, like snakes and worms all in a bucket. Is that what he’s feeling? _Jealousy_? John wonders. The sky is getting darker with every second, and all of a sudden he is happy again to be hidden by shadows. This conversation is growing more burdensome than he had initially expected, when all he had wanted was to flirt a little bit and forget about his troubles.

“...You think silence makes you seem dangerous?” Abigail teases. Damn it, the woman is good at clawing into him. 

“No,” He rebuts. “Can’t figure it all out, is all.” 

“What’s there to figure? I’m independent and unaffiliated. Don’t work _too_ hard, John. You’ll _overload_ a circuit.” 

For some reason, that rankles. Abigail is only joking, but it seems so much like something Arthur would say that for a moment John feels struck by a bolt of electricity. John _knows_ he is an idiot. He doesn’t need the constant reminders. “Just can’t figure why Arthur would let such a _prime cut_ get away from him is all.” It’s meaner than he had intended. But this woman is sometimes equal parts infuriating as she is attractive. 

Abigail finally glares at him. “Shouldn’t you be askin’ why I cut _him_ loose? You’re undignified right now, it _ain’t_ cute.”

“I’m no dog, Abigail, _I ain’t ever been cute_.” John spits back, and then he abruptly stands up.

Abigail stays exactly where she sits, but still shows a little surprise. “...Hey! Come on now, John, don’t be so sore about it... Where’re you goin’? It was just a joke...” 

John just waves her off. He needs some time to _think_ . Christ, he _hates thinking_ . He clomps over to the ladder and throws his boots over the edge of the roof, until they hit the top rung. He needs some time to cool his head. To process. Arthur and Abigail had been together, once. They had been _together_. 

“John!”

“Enough, woman! Just leave me alone!” 

This strikes a nerve. Abigail yells after John as he descends the ladder, her voice shot through with anger. “Jesus _almighty_ , I didn’t know I was flirtin’ with a _twelve year old_! Don’t piss your britches too and come cryin’ to me to change your underpants later!”

But John has already gone. 

  
  


Arthur and Abigail had been together. _Together_. Had they made love together? Spoken quietly, close as lovers are in the deep, dark parts of nighttime? Had Arthur wrapped his arms around her, treated her as precious, been more tender to her above all others? Just the notion of this is a concept too big for John to wrangle in the presence of others. So John makes sure, like always, that when it counts the most and he needs to process something he doesn’t like that he is alone. He bristles, and grits his teeth, and weaves his way behind the trailers and away from the folk comfortably gathered around the evening fire. All of a sudden he finds he doesn’t want to speak to anyone at all.

_People are the problem,_ John thinks in a familiar voice that’s not quite his own, and he stalks out into the wind-bit grass. Ahead of him stretches the wide purple sky; solitude is there, and a vast, open emptiness. Aren’t things better when he’s alone? Just like always. John is used to being alone, after all. Sometimes, he’s sure it’s all he really knows. _There’s just too many goddamn people._

  
  
  
  


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Evening passes and settles into a fitful nighttime, and John is returning to camp from his strange walk out in the open plains when he spots Arthur sitting by the fire. Not too much good thinking got done to speak of while out on his walk, primarily because John is usually not that hard-thinking, but he’s still relieved that most of the camp has emptied out by the time he arrives. He isn’t interested in small talk at the present moment, and by camp density it must be much later than John had initially supposed. Either that, or somewhere Grimshaw is roasting folk alive for some critical chore left undone earlier in the day. 

Stars twinkle in the low black sky above them as Arthur sits alone, Dutch and Hosea now nowhere to be seen. But Arthur’s face still shows the dregs of some argument yet still unresolved, pulling at the bags under his eyes and making him look older than he really is. John is sure he hates this, and decides to watch some more. 

Arthur is sitting hunched over like a grizzled veteran, and John is hit palpably in the gut by the forlorn curve of his spine. The man is very clearly still in his head about something, and at first John hesitates, not willing to throw himself into the fray if Arthur is moody and looking to take a swing at some unlucky punching bag. But then enough time passes that John understands that nobody else will sit near Arthur right now either, and so absolutely nothing new happens at all. 

Tucked behind a nearby trailer, John stays awhile and watches some more from the purple shadows as Arthur sits and breathes. Morgan grips his knees in his calloused hands, jeans dusty from the day’s work at the rodeo, and after a while he stuffs one hand inside his jacket pocket and produces a small brown leather journal. He also produces the wooden nub of a pencil, and soon enough Arthur has propped the book open on one knee and had bent over to work the page. He’s _drawing_ , the revelation comes after a minute. And from the sliver of paper John can see from his hidden vantage point, he isn’t half bad at it. _Horses_ , John smirks. Of course... Arthur is drawing _horses_. John will certainly remember to make fun of him for this later. And suddenly all his fear is gone.

The fire crackles, calming in it’s own way. Distant idle chatter from the surrounding camp fades into the periphery as Arthur draws alone. John recognizes there is a certain, _specific_ peace to this ritual. He knew Arthur was a private man, but a journal is something entirely tender. For every second Arthur spends frowning and not saying a word, John is sure there is a page somewhere in his journal that reflects that specific thought. Arthur’s forehead slowly begins to smooth out as he draws, all his creases gradually easing as he relaxes into his hobby, and his shoulders go slack too as his elbow guides his arm in a series of short, sketching gestures. Everything that was tightly wound about him gradually begins to unclench, and John doesn’t catch himself also relaxing until he has already leaned into the side of the trailer like a sleepy cat. When he does eventually realize this, John stands up straight again with a sudden snort, and without thinking at all he strides out from behind the trailer and makes his way down the path to the fire pit. 

Arthur looks up at the noise of an intruder, and his hand immediately stiffens with the pencil gripped too hard between his thumb and forefinger. John stops up short by the fire too, obviously too stupid to think until this exact moment that Arthur likely prefers to draw in solitude. But it’s already too late not to be a nuisance, and John thinks with a deeply troubling surety that he _wants to_ be a nuisance, so John only gives Arthur a gruff nod and pretends he doesn’t care about what he’s seeing at all. Instead, John unceremoniously settles down on the opposite side of the fire, but he takes his time about it as if he’s got old bones instead of young ones. Almost a carbon-copy of something Arthur would do. He’s always watching Arthur, after all. Watching how he moves. Where he’s looking. What he’s doing. Copying him feels almost unconscious. 

They take a long beat to stare at one another through the fire. Arthur looks very much like he’s sussing John over, trying to decide if he wants to yell or not. But John stays respectful by keeping his silence and his distance, and so in the end neither one ends up saying a damn thing. 

  
  


For a long while, John just listens to the sound of the fire crackling. The yellow light dances between them, casting Arthur’s figure in flickering patches of gold and brown and blue. It really _is_ peaceful here, he thinks after a while. John feels calmer than he remembers being in weeks, sitting even this close to Arthur. Just... _sitting_. Much calmer than sitting by Abigail, and that’s for damn sure. Well, he’s calm enough when Arthur isn’t yelling, anyway. (John hates the yelling.) But nobody’s yelling right now. Arthur only studies him some more, his dark blue eyes curious under the brim of his hat. Just as curious as that day he’d pushed tequila into John’s hand, and told him the only wolves left in Oklahoma were people. But just as John’s head starts to get fuzzy, and he thinks he might actually drift off, he hears something he didn’t expect. 

It is a very particular sound.. One John finds that he likes very much. It is a kind of whisper... the grainy, quiet sigh of lead across the surface of rough paper. John cracks a lazy eye open and peers back through the flames at Arthur. Sure enough, his hand is moving again in quick, quiet strokes. And even though John can’t be sure of it, even if it seems unreasonable and unlikely, from the way Arthur’s eyes keep bouncing across the fire and then back down to his paper again, after a while John has a strong suspicion that Arthur is drawing _him_. When he finally does drift off to sleep, even though he doesn’t mean to do it, for the first time in weeks John is sure he feels safe as any secret. 

Maybe, there is _one_ person John doesn’t mind keeping close after all. 

  
  


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There is something ridiculous about this new life. This is a thought that has never quite left John behind, and he thinks it again now as he faces the task Arthur has set for him. He never would have done this a year ago. Six months ago. Even a few _days_ ago, but here he is all the same. John is a lot of things, but he is sure that he is not a coward. 

The sky is still orange with the rising sun, and Old Boy is naked except for a waxy rope wound twice around his barrel just behind his withers like Arthur has shown him. This is not a proper riding horse’s rig. This is the way rodeo cowboys ride angry steer, and John is sure this is ten thousand times more liable to get his neck snapped when he inevitably hits the ground. He had flat out rejected this plan the last time, when the rope had been shoved against his breastbone, but at the time Arthur had booked for no refusals. Perhaps he had not climbed on the horse in front of Arthur that day, but he had sworn that he would try another day, though _only on his own terms._

This morning John has taken this attempt upon himself in private, because he half-suspects Arthur’s observations only make things more difficult in the long run. And because Arthur had agreed that this was probably true, John has been left to his own devices. Arthur had called John a fool for making a jump as big as this one without a safety net in place, but John supposes hardheadedness has always run in his family. 

Old Boy takes an easy trot around the circle of the fence, and damp from the morning dew makes the sand clump up and release in moon shapes underneath his sturdy hooves. John thinks the creature is beautiful as he watches his white socks flash, not sure why he couldn’t see it before now. His silver tail streams out behind his strong legs as he takes his easy turns, and John thinks of Arthur’s opinions on trust. _He don’t trust you, you feel peculiar._ Maybe the horse can’t trust John because John has never even trusted himself. 

“C’mon now,” John coos, trying to echo Arthur, willing his hands to move like Arthur’s would. Old Boy approaches, and John’s hands settle calmly on his nose. The horse snorts into his palms, inspecting for treats. He’s as smart a beast as John has ever met, not that he’s met too many. John produces an apple out of his pocket, because of course he has been seen clean through already, and he only listens and breathes awhile as Old Boy crunches into the core with a grunt of pleasure. 

“You and me this time. What’dyou say?” No seeming human words produce themselves from the horse in reply, and so John only gives himself a final, steadying breath, then loops his fingers into the rope. He steps into it without fear and pulls himself swiftly up and over the horse’s back.

Immediately, John knows this is a different game. Without the sensory deprivation of a thick leather saddle between him and the horse flesh, John is sure he can feel every twist and flex of the animal’s muscles between his legs. His right hand threads a second wind into the rope and into the Horse’s withers, just like Arthur had taught him, and he sucks a breath in and out just as Old Boy launches into motion. 

This time John lets his upper body go loose when he is jerked forward, and his legs feel out the motion of the beast and tighten accordingly. He doesn’t quite know what has happened, only that he feels his body begin to move a step ahead of his brain. This has probably always been the secret; John tries so hard to think about things that are out of his league, when instead he should have only listened to what his body tells him. The world narrows and narrows, and then it narrows down some more, and then it narrows even tighter than that until all John can sense, or taste or feel or see, are the tiny shifts in Old Boy’s body weight. Without fear or logic to burden him, each micro-adjustment the horse makes right before he takes a different stride is easier to sense than John had ever thought possible. The horse bolts forward and John leans back, the horse kicks left and throws his body towards the gate and John leans into the centripetal force, his counterbalance rendering any thinking useless in favor of pure physical instinct. He’s doing it. _He is finally doing the damn thing_.

Old Boy bucks hard, nearly flinging John into the air, but he holds on tight and throws his left arm out for balance, feet tingling, legs aching, his fingers wound painfully into the rope and going purple with bloodlessness. His whole body burns, Old Boy rears up and kicks out with sharp, ferocious hooves into empty air, and John almost cracks his skull hard on the horse’s head, but he still stays up, _he’s staying up, goddamn it_ , _he’s no coward,_ and then the beast beneath him gives one last imperious trumpet before falling heavily back down on all fours and finally ceases to fight. 

John sits on the suddenly immobile animal and only breathes, panting and sweating harder than he can remember as adrenaline courses through his veins. It makes his heart thunder louder than any stampede in his ears, but this time, Old Boy isn’t going anywhere. 

It takes a minute before a few muffled claps break their way through John’s rattled senses to finally hit his ears. He looks over, and Arthur has leaned up against one of the fence posts, a boot resting on a low bar. He’s still a little rumpled from sleep. Not the way he looks, Arthur has been an early riser as far as John can tell since the day he was born, but it’s in his eyes. Arthur’s eyes are still puffy, the skin at the tops of his cheeks a little more raw than not. For a minute neither of them can figure anything good to say, though Arthur’s sleepy stare is starting to shine with something John isn’t quite sure he’s familiar with. 

“...Son of a gun.” Eventually Arthur says. And then he breaks out into a genuine grin. John’s heart thunders harder than ever, making a raucous, uncomfortable flip-flop in the cage of his chest. Arthur clicks his tongue, and Old Boy plods placidly over to greet him. John is nearly forgotten, still perched up high on the horse’s back. 

John chuckles, but no real sound comes out. He’s still too breathless. “That’d be _Mister_ Son of a Gun to you.” He still manages to correct, sounding as superior as he can make himself. The top of Arthur’s head comes into view when Old Boy knocks his hat off and begins to lip at his gold hair. Maybe this is hearsay, but John wonders if this isn’t the happiest he has ever seen Arthur look. Maybe it’s only wishful thinking. Arthur’s quiet, but he _feels_ loud. “ _Told_ you I could do it.” 

“No you didn’t.” Arthur snorts, gently pushing Old Boy away. “But that don’t matter now. That’s old business, as far as you and me’re concerned.” 

“Oh yeah? And why’s that?” 

When he looks up, there is something set in Arthur’s blue eyes. John wonders if it’s like respect, but he has never been looked at by someone he respected in return with such an expression, so at first he still doesn’t quite know what he’s seeing. 

“ _Because_ ,” Arthur elaborates, one steady hand giving Old Boy’s strong neck a perfunctory pat. A grin is still tucked neatly away in the left corner of his mouth. “You, John Milton, are about to make us a _hell of a lot_ of money.”

  
  
  
  


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That night, Arthur throws an arm around John’s shoulders for the first time. News has spread fast in camp, as it is liable to do, and by sunset everybody knows that clumsy, stupid John Milton has finally conquered the world’s most stubborn horse. There’s friendly chatter as pleasant as he could ask for, and everyone is in good spirits with their next rodeo event steadily approaching in early June. John is not so sure why this should make everybody as happy as they are, his victory over Old Boy is surely not enough reason for Pearson to break out his special case of Irish whiskeys, but when Arthur drags John merrily through the camp by his neck to verbally recreate John’s victory ride, everyone greets him with friendly smiles. 

When all the stars are shining, and the circle of trailers all twinkle with merry lights and Javier has started in on a fresh round of ballads, John finally manages to extricate himself from the crook of Arthur’s arm. Not because he doesn’t like it, but because the back of his neck is beginning to chafe, and he doesn’t think he’s drunk enough to deal with Arthur’s smell… musk and horse and hay, and now the sharp stink of sweat and whiskey. Arthur stands up from the fire and ruffles John’s hair with affection, before heading off to find a toilet. 

John sits in the lurch, feeling uncomfortable in his stomach and like his head is full of silly gas. The kind for teeth, meant to make you go giggly-stupid. He’s so happy it makes him worried, and his attention is shot enough that he physically jumps when Charles presses a cold bottle of whiskey into the side of his neck. John accepts it gratefully after the shock passes, and he uncorks it and takes a swig as Charles settles down to replace himself in Arthur’s old spot. The whiskey is warm and reassuring, helping ease John’s flighty mood. 

“I heard you and me are gonna be spending some more time together.” 

That’s enough to prompt John to take another swig. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand afterward. “That’s right. Arthur’s harebrained moneymakin’ scheme.” 

“It’s no _scheme_ , way Arthur tells it. And we’re pretty good at schemes, you know.” Charles looks at him with a subtle confidence. Light from the fire dances over his dark face, making his eyes glitter with interest. “He says you’re the real deal.” 

“Sure. More like _real dead_ in a week. Maybe two weeks.”

“I don’t think so. I’d trust Arthur’s judgement with my life. If he says you’re meant to ride broncos, then you’re meant to ride.” 

Another big gulp on the whiskey bottle. “And what if I don’t wanna?” 

Charles lifts an eyebrow. “You don’t want to?” 

There’s a palpable pause. “...I…” But John trails off. He just stares into the fire for a while without finishing the sentiment, the whiskey bottle going slack in his fingers. To his credit, Charles doesn’t say anything and only listens. 

Behind them there’s a minor scuffle and Bill stumbles partially into John’s back, knocking everyone askew as he grapples with what by now is a _very, very_ drunk Sean.

“Oh, _golden boy,_ ‘scuse me, didn’t see you there,” Bill sputters, his hands going out to grasp at Sean’s shoulders, who is already the laughing kind of drunk. They’re both drunker than hell, to be completely honest.

“ _Hey_ , would you watch yourself, you fat, lazy sonovabitch?” John gripes, but Bill just swipes at his hair, half as affectionate as Arthur had been. He misses when John jerks away, but only barely. 

“Sorry! Didn’t realize I was upsetting the _favorite_ ! Shhhh, shhhh, _don’t tell Arthur._ Sean, don’t say shit to the workhorse, you hear me? Charles, don’t tattle!”

Sean laughs and pulls Bill back from the other men, if only because three sheets to the wind and he can still spot a salty scowl from Charles when he gets one. “Aye, I’ll keep me lips sealed up tight! Right _tight_ as a pussy closed fer business, me good old Billy-boy!”

“Right!” Bill agrees, swaying where he sands. “Tight as a..! As a… one of those!” 

“You’re both pissed.” Charles observes, sounding much calmer than John would have expected from any other man. 

“You are correct, sir!” Sean hiccups. Bill immediately begins to sing along with the bawdy song Javier is playing across camp. It’s enough to distract his feet, and he pulls Sean by the lapel after him, who follows with a nod and a wink. John glares a while over his shoulder, then turns back to the fire and takes another long swig. The whiskey is starting to get to him. 

“Don’t mind them.” Charles councils when they’re alone again. 

John grunts. “Only a fool cares about what another fool has to say.” He tries to sound wise, but hopes he isn’t being too obvious. 

“It’s true though.” 

“What is?” 

“You’re Arthur’s favorite. I never would’ve figured it, with how he treated you when you first got here.” 

Something hot lurches in John’s stomach, entirely separate from the whiskey. “No I’m not.” He insists, but even to his own ears he can tell he doesn’t sound very convincing. “It’s just, it’s all that damn horse’s fault.” 

_I reckon, because Old Boy gave you the chance first._ John shivers. 

Charles grins and leans back on the log they’re perched on, casting his benevolent eyes up towards the sky. Javier’s song speeds up in tempo as more of the gang clumsily join in to sing along. Everyone is in such good spirits, it seems almost fake. “Maybe that was true at the time, but it’s been different for a while now. Arthur is… well, he’s _particular_ , about you. You haven’t noticed?”

The fire crackles and snaps as a piece of wood collapses into the interior of the pit, and John is sure he can feel the heat of it spread from his face down every vein in his body. His eyebrows furrow together as his insides roil. He tries to sit still. He’s _particular_. John has never been particular before, not to anyone. Not in the way Charles means it, anyway. John takes another pull on the bottle, deeper this time, and he feels Charles try to pry the bottle away from him. 

“Woah, woah, you wanna pitch over? Slow down, cowboy!” 

_“I ain’t a cowboy._ ” John spits with a very particular venom, and wrenches the bottle back. Charles raises both his hands in surrender, and then goes quiet again. He stares at John for a long minute, before asking, “do you want to be?” 

John only passes the back of his wrist over his eyes. The fire is beginning to shift in unfamiliar directions. “...Sadie says you gotta babysit Dutch next. She says it’s your turn.” 

“Don’t change the subject. Do you want to ride? Nobody’s gonna make you do it if you don’t want to, you know.”

When John looks up, it’s only to cast his blurry gaze back out over the camp. Where has Arthur gone again? Suddenly John misses the weight of his arm, the stink of his body as close as a horse. John is starting to understand why Arthur loves those beasts as much as he does. They’re honest. John has not met many honest folk in his life, or even honest dogs, and Arthur is the rarest sort of honest John can think of. 

At the far end of camp, John finally spots Arthur. He’s done with the washroom seemingly long since past, and now he’s standing with a hand on his trailer door. Abigail is leaned up against it, and they’re talking amiably in the soft glow of the party. What before had been an uncomfortable burble in the pit of John’s stomach quickly flares up into a radiating anger. He abruptly stands up, and at first he thinks he must be drunker than he really is because his legs wobble unsteadily underneath him. But then he remembers how stiff breaking in Old Boy had made his body and he stomps his feet a few times to sure up his balance. It works.

“John?” Charles’s voice is a safety check. 

“I’ll ride.” John breathes. “Tomorrow morning. I’ll be there.” and then he stalks off across camp, leaving Charles to stare after him in questioning silence. 

  
  
  


John knows that he’s angry. He’s always been a little angry, but lately he can feel himself changing more and more. Why does he care like he does? Surely, a life of hopping from place to place has been enough to teach John the valuable lesson that putting his faith in people will surely yield nothing good. He’s not supposed to even be here. But despite this lesson, John has been aching inside since coming to camp Pretty Pony. He thinks about his dreams, and the Strange Man counseling him about second chances. John knows a second chance when he sees one. Or, at least he _thinks_ he does. He is sure he has never liked the place he has slept more than his own trailer now, but he also knows his newfound love is more than the sum of just a bed and a sink and a lock on his door. John is changing because he sees Dutch looking at him with a fatherly, knowing expression, and it’s Hosea kindly correcting his grammar in private. It’s Karen calling him _sweetheart_ when he’s being stupid, and Sadie pouring him an extra finger of tequila as a reward for his hard work. He feels a hollow emptiness getting filled up when Lenny asks him a serious question and expects a serious answer, and when Bill volunteers to give him a hand with a heavier task. John has never felt _kept_ , by anyone, much less by group of people, but he already feels more kept by _one_ person many times over than all the rest together. 

John wants Arthur to look at him. That much has grown steadily more obvious, even to a block headed fool. He wants Arthur to watch him, and to be the judge if his actions have been performed correctly. He wants his approval, a nod or a shake of the head doing more to nail John down to the ground than any single act has ever done before it. He wants to be special to Arthur, somehow different from all the rest, even if by just a little. He wants a _real_ family. _He wants_ … John’s hands flex as he walks briskly between trailers, sweaty with drink and nerves, and with the velvety wet of summer night. John wants to be... _particular_. Just like Charles had said. 

“...Well, _well_ ... Speak of the devil.” Abigail looks up with a friendly smirk as John comes up on the two of them. His arms are already too stiff, and his fists are clenched too tight. Arthur pushes off the trailer door by his fingertips and turns to give John an open look, but John only returns it with a hostile glare and grabs Abigail by the arm. She’s confused and halfway towards finding some protest when he drags her off, and Arthur’s face goes quickly from open to closed again. John can’t bear to look at him for more than a few seconds, because he’s not sure if he’ll punch Arthur in the face or do something much, _much_ worse. _Arthur’s particular about you. It’s been different for a while now_. 

“What is this?” Abigail gasps, falling into step behind him as he drags her backward again through the camp he’s only just traversed. She sucks in a breath. “You really _are_ the jealous type, ain’t you? That’s real sweet and all, John, but I _told_ you, it’s over! _Long_ since done!”

John ignores this and doesn’t say anything. Her voice is a little incredulous, like maybe she _likes_ what is happening, and if John is good at anything it’s knowing exactly when to kill and when to fuck. And since he doesn’t plan on killing Abigail, then that leaves just the one option left. 

The sounds of camp recede when John and Abigail stumble through his trailer door and he slams it angrily closed behind them, reaching immediately to pull the woman hard against his chest. He can feel her heart fluttering, her breath puffing in excitement against his face, even in the dark. 

“ _John_ ,” she says again, but this time, there’s a flavor like scandalous enjoyment in it. John hasn’t ever fucked Abigail alone. He’s always playing with all the girls, and sometimes with Karen, but Karen is open with everyone like that. So Abigail lets it happen when he shoves her hard up against the wall of his tiny kitchen, banging open one of the cabinet doors in the process. He _likes_ Abigail, in _particular_ . He’s particular about her. He has to remind himself of this. Particular. _Particular_ . _He has got to stop thinking about Arthur_. He’ll do something crazy otherwise. 

Rucking up her skirt, John sandwiches it between their bodies to hold the cloth in place and then he unapologetically pushes his hand down the front of her underwear. She gasps, and he feels along her mound until he finds her sweet spot. She’s already a little damp, and John thinks he can almost taste the sex on her skin when she lets out a haggard breath. He doesn’t want her talking to Arthur. He doesn’t want them _looking_ at each other. John can’t tell if he’s more horny than he is confused, or if being horny has _made him_ confused. Had Arthur had her like this? How had he touched her? What sounds had he made? Did he touch women like he touches his horses, with his calm, strong hands? Or was that part of him secret to everyone, except to Abigail?

“Tell me you want it.” John demands, rough and angry with himself. Abigail nods, several times more than she needs to. 

_“Gentle, John_ ,” she cautions, but she still sounds like she wants it when he abruptly flips her around and presses her face into the wall. Her hands come back to feel at him as he hastily unbuckles his pants, not even bothering to push them even halfway down his thighs before he pulls himself out and lines up against her hole. He’s already rock hard, but sometimes he gets hard when he’s too tired or too angry. He’s not sure which he is right now. They’re both stiff, going absolutely still for a razor’s breath, before John grabs her hips and pushes inside in a single, deep stroke. Abigail groans out loud and her legs go weak, John can feel it when her hips sag in his grip. She fumbles out across the wall and they make a messy few sidesteps over to the counter, where she sweeps all the dishes off the cheap linoleum and they clatter loudly to the floor. Someone laughs outside, but John doesn’t have the wherewithal to judge if they’re laughing at them or not. 

Despite her caution, John still fucks Abigail hard. The liquor is running hot in his veins and he’s too worked up to operate any other way. She’s partial enough to it, if Abigail’s moans have anything real to say. They keep getting louder, anyhow. But they’re almost secondary to John, who is both 100% in his cock and 100% in his head, somehow both at the same time. He’s _particular_ , he thinks again and again. God, he can’t stop thinking about it. He’s been _particular_ to Arthur for _a while now_. He’s never been special to anyone. He steps up on a stool to get some better leverage, reaches up and grabs an overhead cabinet handle. He fucks Abigail harder, harder, until she’s up on the tips of her toes, moaning and laughing and moaning again. His free hand wraps underneath her stomach, pulling her up into each of his thrusts, and her skirt skims his arm in the pantomime of a caress. She’s hot inside, so hot, hot enough to almost be able to pull him back down to earth. She’s just exactly as hot as John’s blood is. He’s boiling. Maybe boiling over. He’s not sure who he’s so mad at, only that he is. John wants to ravage. Abigail still has got most of her clothes on. They both do. He scruffs her neck hard from behind, and when she twists around, he can see her face is flushed dark with arousal. She glares at him and tightens up deliberately on his cock. “... _Jesus,_ woman,” is all he can manage, before he’s fisting her hair to pull her up after him. 

John isn’t sure he recalls exactly how they make it to his bed, only that they do, and that several now broken household objects had been sacrificed to the God of Sex between here and there. He manages to pull Abigail half out of her shirt and her tits are in his face by the time he finally comes. But even after it has happened, he thinks he could still go again. If he can just brave himself to think a little harder about Arthur’s hands, he imagines it would be very easy to get hard a second time. But Abigail’s heart is beating frantically in his ear, her hands still wound tightly into his greasy black hair, and he finally feels a little ashamed for what he has just done. They breathe on each other in the sweaty dark for a while in silence, before John finally flops over onto his back. Outside, Javier is still merrily singing with a group in the distance. 

“... _Christ_ , John.” Abigail pants into the quiet aftermath. She doesn’t even bother fixing any of her clothes. “You’d think ridin’ _one_ horse was enough to turn you into a wild animal! Not that I’ll complain about it now, but who knew you was a wolf this whole time?” 

John only huffs, and his sweaty hair unsettles, then re-sticks at odd angles again to his salt-slick skin. He stares at the ceiling, but he isn’t in his trailer anymore. Not really. He hadn’t really been in his own body for most of this. He knows something has shifted. Something inside him. He thinks it might be connected in a perfect line to the Strange Man in the stovepipe hat that haunts his dreams, and to the nightmare of Arthur on the mountaintop, looking haggard and as pale as death itself. There is something of dire importance going on, but the problem is only that John is too stupid to figure out any of it. So he just sucks in another breath, then raises a frustrated palm to rub across his forehead. “You’re wrong, Abigail.”

She gives an airy bark. Something like disbelief and amusement at once. “Oh you was _a wolf_ just now, John Milton, believe you me. How’d I get that wrong?” 

  
  


John just closes his eyes. “Because there ain't no more wolves in Oklahoma.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> damn, you guys. This a slow burn after all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Arthur draw closer together.

The wind blows in the early hours.

Sure enough, the wind blows. But the weather comes in gentle when it slides inside the canvas flap of John’s pup tent. Everything about mid-spring is soft in the morning; it is nature’s first, gentle exhalation after the frigid tension of winter. That’s one of the reasons John likes it so much. He still dozes in his bedroll in all this softness despite the fact that he should get up, but the scent of damp clover is still sweet in his nose. He can feel the horses pawing at the ground and snorting for their breakfast nearby. Everything is glazed in a pale white light. It saturates John, warming the skin of his cheeks as Arthur walks by and the motion of his body makes the canvas sway. 

John can hear the clank of their camp gear as Morgan puts on their coffee, and then the day’s bacon. He wishes he could stay like this. John drifts between awake and asleep as Arthur half-speaks, half-sings a meandering tune under his breath. He doesn’t want to wake John up. They’ve been out ranging together for more than a week, but before they’re both prepared for it, duty will call them back to camp... Sooner than either of them would wish. 

John floats. He wants to stay. He’s happiest knowing he can sleep while Arthur keeps a steady eye out for any danger. 

“ _You are my hmm hmmmm_ , _my only hmm hmmm,_ ” the melody is only half formed, and farther away, then closer again. Arthur is more toneless when he doesn’t think anyone can hear him. “ _hmm hmmm hmm hm hmmmm, when skies are grey..._ ” 

When he trails off, John finally raises a hand to rub away the crust in his eyes. 

“...don’t stop...” He gravels after a bleary moment, his voice still raw from sleep. 

“You awake?’ 

“...yeah.” 

_“... up….”_

“What was that?” John couldn’t quite make that first bit out. His brows smash together as he clenches his eyes shut in a sudden swell of tension. “..huh? No, I said, _don’t_ stop.”

_“... get up...”_

“I’m up, _Jesus_ , gimmie a minute...” 

  
  


“GET UP.” 

A boot hits John square in the stomach and he sits up with a violent jerk in his trailer bedroom. 

  
  


At first John can only feel at the boot in his lap, and beneath it, the dirty white sheet where it pools between his legs. His hair is completely wild and pointing in every conceivable direction, and John has to push it out of his face before he finally spies Arthur, standing stiff and judgmental as a furious priest at the foot of his bed. 

“Well, that about did it.” Arthur grits, his voice lower than usual. The lengths to which he sounds like he’s exercising control makes John blink some more, breathe in, try to make more sense of things. As reality settles in, John makes the heartbreaking revelation that he is _incredibly_ hungover. 

“ _Oh…_ ” John mumbles, wishing vehemently he hadn’t woken up after all. He grinds a fist painfully into his forehead. “... _Fuck. What time is it?_ ” 

“Twelve thirty.” 

“A.M.?”

“No, dumbass, _P.M_. You’re late for work.” 

When John looks up again he realizes his bedroom is just as sun kissed as his dream had been. Except this time, the light is like a razor to the back of his brain. And Arthur doesn’t look _remotely_ like he’s in any kind of singing mood. 

“...The hell happened?” 

“You drank near a whole damn bottle of corn whiskey in fifteen minutes and made a fool spectacle of yourself.”

Was that true? John’s hands smooth out across the bed, and he turns his wretched body around to give the spot beside him a look. Abigail, he recalls. _Abigail had been there_. She’s not there anymore, she’s an even earlier riser than Arthur, and she probably had only a third of the liquor as him. Abigail is probably a better person than John is because so far, she’s always been better at controlling herself. 

_...Wasn’t she?_

The fuzzy recollection of Abigail’s breath hot in his ear as she moaned resurfaces to give John a sickening idea; maybe she’s _not_ better at controlling herself than he is. Maybe not at all. 

Arthur cuts in. Not that John had been speaking before, but it _feels_ like he cuts in because John’s thoughts are that loud. “Abigail’s been up and gone for hours. Just you’s the only one still here. The laziest layabout bastard in camp. Shit, Milton, you even got _Uncle_ beat.”

There’s the slow drag of John’s eyes across his messy mattress. He can’t look up fast because he can’t do _anything_ fast right now. His head might explode, just like a rotten mellon having sat out too long in the sun. When he finally meets Arthur’s stiff blue gaze, it takes a few lingering moments to realize this is the first time Arthur has ever entered his trailer. Not when he was alone, anyway. Not since he’s lived here. And then John becomes acutely aware of the fact that he is still naked. 

“...So what?” Eventually John prompts into the awkward silence, even as his fingers slowly curl around the boot in his lap, drawing it closer. “You just come to look at me? The fuck you care? I don’t report to you today.” 

What’s surprising is that Arthur actually _does_ look at him. John feels remarkably observed when Arthur takes his time to give his naked body a genuine once-over, and he has to fight the urge to cover himself more than he already has. This is strange firstly because John has never been a modest man, but second because his modesty is still somewhat intact by the sheet and boot over his dick, and so he shouldn’t be in a position to feel embarrassed in the first place. But the power imbalance in the room still makes John feel raw and sharp as any exposed electrical cord.

Arthur is dressed from head to toe in gray denim and plaid, his dark blue gambler’s hat stuffed down low over his forehead. But John is bare as the day he was born, and left wondering if reaching for his pants would label him a coward. Arthur saves him the trouble by stretching down with one stiff arm and flinging his jeans across the bed. Somewhat reluctantly, John collects them, then slowly begins to pull them back on. 

  
  


“Listen to me, Milton. I can tolerate you bein’ _lazy_ now and again, but you… you…” 

Why does Arthur’s voice sound like that? John glances up through the curtain of his hair. Morgan is pinched around the eyes, like he’s making a careful, if pained attempt to gather his words. His voice is too strange not to sense that something’s gone wrong. He almost sounds rubbery. 

“...Now, that was some _fine_ ridin’ you done yesterday, and maybe I put some airs in your head because of that, but…” 

“The hell are you on about?” John shuffles to the side of the bed to mask his nerves as he yanks his jeans all the way up over his hips, covering his dick back up again. He gets a whiff of himself and feels a deeply saturated regret. Usually it’s the girls watching him put away his favorite tool like this in the mornings. This day is already starting out... upside-down. 

“You just, you…” Arthur’s breath hitches behind clenched teeth. Is he angry? He’s actually _mad_ about something. “You just need to stay the _hell_ away from Abigail Roberts.” 

Oh, if only he could go back in time. 

“To hell with you, Arthur, why?” John’s stomach is instantly in knots, and he stands up and stuffs a hand down the front of his jeans to adjust himself. “She ain’t your property, is she?” 

It doesn’t help that Arthur hasn’t backed up an inch. God, has he always been that huge? “No, she ain’t. But she _is_ my friend, and I know she don’t deserve whatever _dumbass scheme_ you got workin’ on her honor, so you just... keep that shit to the other girls, alright?”

_He’s particular about you._ John glares up at Arthur, as petulant as he can manage. What the hell had Charles even been talking about? John’s not particular to Arthur after all. This proves it. He’s just _territorial_. 

“If I wasn’t such a dumbass, I’d think you sounded _jealous_.” John growls. He’s not sure if he’ll throw a punch or stagger into the kitchen to throw up in his sink first. He can feel the grime on every inch of his skin. Dirt, sweat, sex. “You got a problem with me, Morgan? If you do, you had better say it!” 

“ _No_ .” Arthur barks the word like it hurts his tongue. He takes a bitter pause, and then belatedly pronounces, “... _Yes_.”

“Oh yeah? And why’s that? Cuz I don’t lick your shoes clean enough to get genuine lackey status yet? Get outta my way.” John makes to shove past, but Arthur grabs his arm and throws him back in place. His hand is tough and hot, and leaves John’s arm raw. 

“ _Oh_ no you don’t. _You stay put._ We ain’t done yet.” 

John scoffs. “You got a list of grievances?” 

“You want me to make a list? How’s this?” His calloused hand shoots up in the air, counting off with his fingers, one at a time. “You’re _dumber’n_ a sack of busted lightbulbs. Your directional sense is dogshit. You’re _ugly,_ and you smell bad. You follow your cock around like you’re some _goddamn_ _fifteen_ year old kid, and if Dutch didn’t have half a mind to adopt you on the spot I’dve _kicked your scrawny corpse down a hole_ the same night we found you!” 

John doesn’t realize his jaw has gone slack until he takes a ragged breath. “...you think I’m ugly?” 

The force with which Arthur rolls his eyes is nearly hard enough to pop them out of his skull. Instead of answering, he only bends down and smashes the other discarded boot straight at John’s chest, who flinches as he catches it. 

“ _Just get dressed_. You got things to do.”

Arthur turns to stalk back out into the kitchen, but John takes a step after him. This time it is John who catches Arthur by the arm, and the bigger man stops up short at the touch. It’s immediate, like a well-trained horse, and John can’t help but be a little surprised. 

The thing is, he just… he _has to_ know. John thinks he might lose his entire goddamn mind if he can’t figure out where he fits into all this mess. “Tell it to me true, Arthur, is Abigail your woman?” 

“No.” The answer is also immediate, but Arthur’s voice is an octave lower than normal. He doesn’t look at John. 

“Do you want her to be?” 

If there is anything strange about any of this, (and there’s plenty strange already,) it’s the pause that Arthur offers after that question. Arthur is still half turned away, but John can see how the skin around his mouth tightens up, like he’s trying to hold back a grimace. Almost like the question hurts him. “... _No_.” he eventually concedes. He sounds…? Like, what? What is that? 

“No, huh?” John breathes. Arthur finally swivels back around to meet his gaze head on, and a silence as thick as butter sets up between them. Today Arthur’s eyes are a slightly unconventional blue; The kind from foggy mornings right before the sun burns off the mist. It’s easy to get lost in that seasoned gaze, like he’s an old soul from another time. His tongue is unexpectedly pink when Arthur swipes it almost unconsciously across his bottom lip. Like he’s thinking of something particular. 

John freezes, going just as still as a jackrabbit in the headlights. Arthur is looking _directly_ at his _mouth_. 

But before John has a moment more to process this, Arthur just yanks his arm free and stalks out of the bedroom. The front door slams a few seconds later, and John is left standing alone, still half-naked in the afternoon glow of his trailer. 

At first John only groans quietly to himself and rubs a hand over his eyes. He feels like _complete horse shit_ , now that he’s familiar enough with the stuff to make the comparison. But one thing weighs heavier on his aching mind even than his hangover. Even in his current state, he knows something that is undeniably true; Arthur is not a liar. And if Arthur doesn’t lie, and Arthur swears he has no interest in Abigail, then surely he’s angry about something else. So there’s only the one question that remains; _what the hell_ has got him so worked up? 

_He’s particular about you. You haven’t noticed?_

With another groan that grows steadily louder, John wracks both his frustrated hands through his bed head once, before he turns around and begins the hunt for his shirt. There’s no more time to think about any of this nonsense when he’s got work to do. 

  
  
  
  
  


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**CHAPTER 3: THRESHOLD OF NIGHT**

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“You’re late.” Charles announces, before the ball hits John squarely in the chest. John grunts as he catches it, already annoyed at the whole world. It’s a mystery why everybody seems hellbent on flinging things at him today of all days, when he’s more hungover than a bloated dead man floating in a river, but somehow it just keeps on happening. This object is a lot heavier than a boot too, and it hurts more; the thing is about the size of a beach ball, but all brown leather and tough on the outside, and it weighs about the same as a racing barrel. It nearly knocked the wind clean out of him.

John wheezes, “The fuck’s this thing so _heavy_ for?” 

“ _Exercise_.” Charles enunciates, and he steps all the way out of the supply closet. “For your training.” 

They’re in the lower office at the Rodeo, the one that’s half backup supply storage, half impromptu staff lounge. Heavy equipment is everywhere, and old broken bull riding machinery mostly obscures any decent view of Charles’ desk. Over by the sliding barn doors that open up to the big open Oklahoma landscape, John sits with a wumph down on one of the office’s musty old canvas couches, still clutching the ball to his chest. Horse hair and dirt rise off it in a cloud of dust, making him sneeze. 

“ _Exercise_? Like, uhh, soccer?” 

“Yeah, right. You kick that thing and you’re gonna break a toe.” Charles laughs. He winds through the junk and takes a seat on a neighboring couch. There’s an old rabbit-eared television with a crack in the glass that’s pushed up against the wall nearby; it’s got some old black and white cowboy movie jittering quietly across the fuzzy screen. John is briefly distracted by the sight of John Wayne vs. a tidal wave of natives until Charles amends, “No, that thing’s for standing.” 

John is even more puzzled. He can’t tell if it’s his hangover or his newness to the world of bronco riding that’s making him feel more like an idiot today, but it’s distinctly possible it could also be a nasty combination of both. 

Again, Charles grins. He doesn’t seem nearly as put-out by John’s lateness as Arthur had been… almost as if he had expected it. “You _stand_ on the ball. It helps with balance. Your life is all about balance now, Milton, you better make your peace with that fact. Balance is all that’s between you and what I promise will be an incredibly brutal death. Not a lot of _old_ guys who ride broncos, if you take my meaning?” He pauses with a faint grin to absorb John’s gobsmacked expression. “...Go ahead, give it a try.”

“Wuh, you mean right here?” 

“Here.” Charles nods, amused. So John tries. 

  
  


The ball is heavy enough that when John drops it on the ground he thinks it’ll be a cinch to stay on top, but when he’s got his second boot up on the narrow surface, his mood takes a hard shift. He manages to keep himself upright for a full minute before his legs begin to tremble, and after another minute his right foot hits the ground again. He gives a low whistle and shakes his head. “I’ll be a _trucker’s uncle._ That’s a bitch of a thing!”

The sound of Charles laughing is comforting somehow, and John can’t quite help grinning back, despite his hangover. Charles just shakes his head and folds his arms across his chest. “You’re too skinny, John. You have to build up your legs! Once you can stand on that thing for an hour on your own, that’s when we can graduate you to the real stuff.” 

“You mean this thing’s just _trainin’ wheels?!”_ John jabs a beleaguered finger at the exercise ball, and Charles nods, his teeth flashing white. 

“Well fuck me.” 

John stares at the ball in resentment for a few moments more, then climbs doggedly back up. His arms are out to keep his balance when Charles makes a subtle conversational diversion. 

“So, how was Abigail?” 

Glancing up only briefly from the laser focus he’d been keeping on his boots, John grunts, and lets the silence stretch out for an awkward beat. “...Arthur’s mad.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“Why d’you care?” 

“You just seemed pretty pissed off last night, is all. What were you so mad about? I thought you had a pretty good day, all things considered.”

“All things considered?” John snorts, stumbles, recovers again. “Arthur’s always mad.” 

“He didn’t seem mad last night! Not until later, anyway. Actually, he seemed…?”

When Charles doesn’t immediately finish his sentiment, John instantly resents it... But he is also too nervous to follow up too quickly, so he waits until he can’t take it anymore. When he finally dares another glance, Charles has a hand at his chin, rubbing it thoughtfully as he stares out the open barn doors. Sunlight filters through the dust motes that hang suspended halfway into the storage-crowded office. 

The suspense feels physically painful. “Like _what_?” John barks, his balance wavering again.

Charles finally just offers a shrug. “He seemed happy.” 

_He’s particular about you._

“... _The hell he was._ ” John grumbles under his breath, actively pushing away the memory of Arthur’s arm slung jovially around his neck, the memory of Arthur’s voice timbered with pleasure as he recounted the tale of John’s first successful ride, the memory of Arthur’s mist-blue eyes focused on the shape of his mouth. John wants to hear more, but he doesn’t want to hear anything else either. His hangover is still _ferocious_ . He doesn’t even know if Arthur’s _preferences_ might even run _that way_ …. Arthur isn’t a man prone to displays of impropriety, after all. The thought is too heavy, so John cuts it off. After grappling with himself with no small serving of agony, John clears his throat and tries to sound casual when he finally asks, “...And later? What happened later?”

“Later?” Charles concludes, shaking his head with a woeful grin. “Later, he _wasn’t_ happy.” 

He doesn’t want to hear that either, but it’s too late. An ice cube slips down into John’s stomach and slips and slides around in there for a while. Why does he feel like such a bonafide asshole? 

Over by the couches, Charles gives a grunt as he stands up and dusts his hands off. He offers conversationally, “You know, Milton, people like to talk about how you’re stupid, but I don’t believe that at all. I just think you’ve got secrets.”

Resentment pricks John with an immediacy he didn’t expect. “ _That_ part of my trainin’ too?” It comes out colder than he meant. He likes Charles. He really does. But people have lines that shouldn’t get crossed, and John is feeling raw as hell at the present moment. 

“No.” Charles concedes, then looks around briskly for his bag. “Listen, John, I’ve got some things I need to pick up from town. Let’s focus on fifteen minutes on the ball, five off, then fifteen on again. Tomorrow we can focus on twenty. If you’re going to be in shape to ride in time for the rodeo next month you’ve got your work cut out for you.” 

“I thought Hosea said I’d be on security detail!” 

“You think you can’t do both? We take shifts. It’s gonna be a long weekend, friend. Better find a range and some time to practice your shot too, if you’ve got any designs on that.”

John nods, digesting everything at the pace of a snail as Charles gathers up his things. As he passes by, he offers a hearty smack to John’s shoulder, knocking him clean off the ball again. 

“Whoops! Well, you know what they say. No better time to start over than right now, huh?” Charles shrugs, before leaving John furious and alone in the office. 

Taking in a rattling breath in the quiet aftermath, John slowly lets it out again to steady himself, and then steps back up onto the exercise ball. He can do this. _He can do this_. After all, Charles is a bastard, but he’s right; there’s no better time to start over again than right now. 

  
  


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The sky is fully black when John finally abandons his balancing act and switches off the old office television, then stomps back out into the dry grass. The night is cool on his skin, and the dark around him wraps him up as he shuffles around the downstairs office and heads towards where he’s parked one of the camp’s labor trucks. All is quiet, Charles having come and gone on his errand, and most of the stable hands have long since been done before the sun had even set. Horses huff in the distance, and the wind makes a low sound that’s almost more moan than whistle. 

Sometimes, John dwells on how peaceful it can get out here. Like the rest of the world is a dream of a dream, separated from the life he’s living now. It settles on him like a cooling salve… _peace_. How fragile peace has always seemed, John thinks, then he stops to feel guilty for even thinking such a thing in the first place. He’s no philosopher, and he doesn’t ask for much in life. He never has. But peace? He thinks peace might be the thing that spoils him. It’s something he’s never had. 

When he stops at his truck bumper, John looks up and spies the upper office window still alight, glowing a steady gold against a field of shadows. Old Hosea must still be up and about, tucked away and hard at work. 

The metal of the truck hood is cool under John’s fingers as he looks at the little window. Hosea has been good to him. Real good. John’s reading is better than it has ever been, and if he’s being perfectly honest it wasn’t in no shape to do him much good before, despite his best efforts to keep that truth a secret. He’s always been a little sensitive about being perceived as an idiot, and having a man as put-together as Hosea as a tutor, hell, a man as whip-smart and as cunning as him, it seems a gift bigger than John is worth. So John gives the old man a little extra of his attention now, and hesitates before getting in his car. Maybe that old gramps would like a lift somewhere. Or even just a cup of coffee, if he’s bent on working late. John can make coffee okay by now, he’s learned not to burn it quite so bad. 

He takes the stairs two at a time, feeling his leg muscles complain after a long day of playing the balancing game. Surely Charles isn’t kidding him, _surely_ this training will pay off somehow, John thinks as he approaches the office door, but he draws to a halt with a knuckle raised to tap on the glass when he unexpectedly hears a second voice; 

  
  


“ _-suppose I don’t know?_ ” 

“Oh for goodness sake, Arthur, you’d think because a horse likes that boy more than you it means your whole career’s over! That’s amusing, considering your vocation’s got nothin’ at all to do with horses. Not if we got right down to the brass tacks.” 

“That ain’t what I said! Kid can _ride_ , sure enough, and he worked hard enough to prove as much... but, it’s all the _rest_ that’s got me bothered! There’s a hell of a lot we still don’t _know_ about him...” 

“And what else is there, exactly?” Hosea’s voice is kind and metered, almost as if he’s smiling. John leans subconsciously closer to the door, his breath sucking up tight in his chest. He feels immediately as if he shouldn’t be here, and also as if he needs to hear every single word of this conversation all at once. 

Arthur sighs, and John can feel him shifting through the floorboards, weight moving anxiously from boot to boot. He doesn’t say anything for a minute. “There’s somethin’ about him. I don’t know, Hosea... Like I... _seen_ him before. I just… I cain’t figure where.”

“Maybe you saw a lookalike in town? He’s a fairly unremarkable looking fellow, to be sure.” Hosea replies, and John wrinkles his nose silently at the insult. “But Arthur, use your head. Apart from this mad theory of Dutch’s that the boy is some sort of... _lynchpin_ , he’s been with us by now for months... He’s a good worker, and we need the hands since we lost Mac and Davey. You said as much yourself! I’m sure I cannot fathom this _obsession_ of yours-” 

“Please, Hosea, don’t call it that...” 

“What? An _obsession_ ? Well, I’ll stop speakin’ my mind when you stop acting the part! Just leave well enough alone, would you? John is a good boy… perhaps not, err, particularly well _behaved_ , or even well _groomed_ , let’s say, but you’re brothers now, by right. As soon as he’s bloodied for us he’ll be a real Son of Dutch! You’d rather us feed him to the wolves? You know who’s out there waiting!”

Another long silence follows, and John is almost sure he can cut the air with a knife. He’s leaning back onto the heel of his deadstock work boot. The secret key is still there, tucked away beneath the peeling sole, when Arthur eventually replies, “...I suspect he’s more likely to get his own self into a mess, _so someone’s_ gotta be there to yank him back out again.” 

_Damn you, Arthur Morgan,_ John thinks with silent passion. He can’t tell if he is more hurt or thankful, and he looks down to realize his grip on the guardrail is a painful one. He removes his fingers with an extracted effort. 

Hosea chuckles, and the sound of his chair screeching signals movement from behind the desk. “See? Brothers aren’t as bad as all that, are they? What’dyou say, Arthur? Humor an old man… Let’s keep him for a while yet.”

More shuffling signals John’s time to make a quiet retreat, and he slowly backs down the stairs and goes and hides in the tool shed. He stays hidden until Hosea’s office door has rattled open and closed, and the ancient stairs have all squeaked and groaned as heavy feet thumped back down to the ground floor, and Arthur has vanished once more into the night. 

  


  
  


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Old Boy is a funny animal. Things are different now, from up in the saddle. John sees the world a little askew. (Or, is it more that the world _out_ of the saddle has always been what felt wrong?) John finds relatively quickly that he _likes_ to ride, and that Old Boy likes to run. Oklahoma is nothing if not ample stretches of open green grass, perfect for galloping out over the tender, dew-dappled scenery of early morning. Often enough Charles will accompany him on the kinds of long and winding rides that tire out both horse and human alike. John is getting better at riding all the time; it is enough that this new life is so quickly starting to become a fundamental part of him. Some days it feels as if he never lived a life without it, that riding has always been in his blood, and it is very strange to think that not so long ago, this was not the case at all. 

Out of the saddle, John finds he likes Old Boy quite a lot too, now that they have arrived at an agreement about the state of their relationship. He’s a big old beast, curious and lumbering, something half a dog already from the way he trails after John and begs for treats and scratches. John figures it’s easiest to think of Old Boy as a dog, that if he moves his body as if Old Boy were a dog he gets the best results. Maybe he should have done that from the get-go, John thinks, but _now is now_ and _then was then_ , and so John only focuses on what he can control that’s in front of him. 

John has had his fair share of dogs. Dogs, he understands. He _gets_ dirty street animals, hungry for a bite of food and a pat or two. Some strays are mean motherfuckers who’ll snap your fingers off as soon as they’d look at you, but some of them are just lonely. John figures, the difference is small; being angry _has always_ been a lonely business. 

These days John doesn’t feel nearly as alone as he once did, now that he has joined camp Pretty Pony... and when they are together, John carries the sneaking suspicion that Old Boy isn’t lonely anymore either.

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One evening, Dutch approaches John while he sits alone at Sadie’s bar, and he presses a .22 caliber revolver into his hand. It is specifically on this occasion that John has a harder time than usual concealing what he feels on his face. He has always been good at poker, but this is something else. He is torn between wanting Dutch’s approval and wanting to keep his secret, so he settles for something in between and only grunts and nods at what the gun suggests; that John should have shooting lessons. After all, Hosea _had_ asked him a while back if he could shoot. Suffice to say, he is a _fantastic_ shot... but one clue, once revealed, quickly leads to two, and then two to three, and so on, and John likes his current life here a little too well to be unseated too soon. He can’t risk Dutch’s suspicion, and though he has already admitted to being a passable shot, he still fingers the revolver in silence on purpose so Dutch takes this reaction as John’s admission of some type of weakness. Dutch just chuckles, because he likes to feel strong compared to other men, and he says in a reassuring voice and a bracing hand on John’s shoulder, “Don’t worry, son, _Arthur_ will teach you how!” 

_Why do things always end up like this?_ John wonders, sucking on his tongue like his saliva is acid. The suggestion of _more_ lessons with Arthur is enough to trigger the growth of several new gray hairs, and John’s trench of a frown digs even further into his face. 

  
  
  
  


Rain is pattering against his window early in the morning when John wakes to the metallic noise of something thunking against his trailer door. It isn’t quite dawn yet, and when he falls out of his bed, half naked and fumbling for the wall in the shadows, it takes a minute to register the sound for what it is. It isn’t a sound John has heard in a while, but it’s not something someone like him would ever forget. Swiping a hand through his sleep-crazy hair, he cautiously grabs the .22 off his kitchen counter then steps down towards the door, and finally swings it open. 

The outside world is a matte gray as Arthur steps back, and lifts up the gun he had been tapping against the door instead of using his fist. He flourishes it in a showy circle before holstering it again, then shoots John a look that feels a lot more like revenge than it does like business. “Rise n’ shine, Milton!” He echoes the familiar greeting with one gold eyebrow sardonically raised. “Time you learned how to shoot.” 

  
  
  
  


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The rain doesn’t let up as they ride out into the gray morning, and Arthur has a sack of something that crinkles and clanks strapped to the back of his saddle. Boadicea is lovely in the mist, almost more ghost than animal, and even in such miserable weather John feels a distinct spike of pride at being able to ride Old Boy right alongside such a sight as Arthur on a horse Charles had once described as a queen. Arthur is in white today, with ochre suspenders that pull apart his shoulder blades and stretches his shirt across the broad plane of his back. He looks a little like a ghost too, all things considered, and that’s a thought that silently follows John around for a while as he in turn follows Arthur through the mist.

John’s legs are weak from bronco training and he falls off his horse with a measure less grace than Arthur when he pulls up to a hitching post seemingly in the middle of nowhere. In every direction, emptiness stretches on and on, and with the low-hanging fog that accompanies the morning rain, it seems as if they exist in a place that’s outside of time. Maybe nothing is beyond here. Maybe the nothing just goes on and on forever. It’s a stupid, illogical thought, John knows it. But maybe he’s biased; John, after all, has always _hated_ the rain. 

“Where’s this?” He questions stupidly, and Arthur only huffs at him as he pulls the clanking bag off the back of his saddle. 

“It’s _nowhere_ , dumbass. Don’t wanna run the risk of a stray bullet takin’ out some poor, unaffiliated passerbyer.” 

At that, John just clenches his teeth to keep from saying anything else. From Arthur’s tone, it seems clear they have reverted their current relationship status back to ‘ _not-friends’_ , though this is still very confusing for John on a number of levels. As soon as he starts to have a grasp on one inclination about them, it seems to go sideways and he can’t tell up from down anymore. Arthur is very difficult to read, but John also thinks he himself must be difficult too, simply because nobody thus far has figured out the fact that he is exactly the thief they have all been hunting for, Dutch most of all. This saying nothing either of his innate, borderline mystical ability to bullseye almost anything he can put his eyes on. Dutch’s Smith & Wesson is warm at his side, and John wonders how bad he can fake his own shot. He’s never had to lie about this before. 

Arthur leads the horses away by some distance and hobbles them, before returning and upturning his clanking bag to produce a pile of empty cans and bottles. He lines them up on the hitching post in even integers, then pauses to load his gun. 

Something about the sight of him in the mist, his gambler’s hat low over his brow to keep off the wet, strikes John directly in the heart. It seems easy for John to forget his own hair slowly plastering to his head from the rain. Or the chill of his own damp clothes. Something about all of this seems familiar in a way that aches, like a memory from childhood not dwelled on for long enough that remembering it suddenly feels like living it again for the first time. He has _been here before,_ John is suddenly sure. Or something like here. With Arthur, in the rain, alone by miles in every direction. 

The sound of Arthur spinning his revolver’s barrel then holstering it again heralds the end of his setup and he looks to John with a skeptical brow once again raised. “Hosea told me you got half an education in this process already, that right?” 

His tongue still thick, John only nods at first, before he can summon up the words. “...I’ve, uh… shot before. A couple times.” 

“Is that right? A _couple_ times.” There’s disdain in it, but Arthur just shrugs and strides up to John’s right side anyway, before gesturing broadly with one gloved hand. “Well since it seems like we don’t gotta go _all the way_ back to _kindergarten_ , why don’t you be my guest? First shot’s all yours, kid.” 

“ _Kindergarten_.” John mutters with mounting annoyance, (he’d never even been to kindergarten) before he draws his weapon, pulls back the hammer and takes aim. 

The wind is blowing southeast, and the air density is thicker than a dry gale. Purposefully sticking his elbow out too far, John grunts and shuffles his feet, then changes his shooting stance to Weaver. Arthur chuckles disparagingly as John leans too hard into his support side and pulls the trigger. The bullet zings into the ether, without disturbing a single can or bottle. 

“ _Hell_ , kid, you as blind as you are stupid?” 

“Shut up, shitty old man.” 

Arthur huffs the retort away with a wave of the hand. “It’s alright! Just, try again.” 

This is annoying, and John expects it will continue on like this for quite some time. With less effort even than before, John shoots off another round that again zings into the mist. The sound of Arthur’s slow clap is the only thing seeming not muffled by the entire foggy world. 

“Who taught you to aim? Ray Charles?” 

“Who?” 

John’s face has turned sour and he’s thinking about all the times his inadequacies have been pointed out to him when suddenly Arthur takes a step in close behind him and lays his hands on John’s arms. Immediately John goes rigid as a board, and Arthur kicks his boots apart into the Isosceles form and corrects his grip on his revolver. Arthur’s chest radiates heat into John’s back, more noticeable from the chill brought on by rain, and transferred more readily through their damp clothes. 

Craning his head around to get a glimpse of John’s corrected sights, Arthur’s voice is a warm gust across John’s cheek when he says, “Like this. See?” 

John shivers, and it’s an honest-to-god miracle he doesn’t turn around and sock Arthur right in the mouth. Arthur notices the shudder and he also goes still, lips drawing into a pencil-thin line. When he speaks again he doesn’t offer an apology, or even a question, but his voice is uncharacteristically low. “Milton _…relax_.”

“ _Jesus, Arthur,_ ” John’s voice spills out too hot. His heart is pounding. Why won’t his neck stop prickling? It’s embarrassingly adolescent. 

Behind them the horses whicker in anxiety, then quickly trumpet out louder in real distress. John and Arthur break apart and turn in unison, and John’s gun is in the air before he even has the chance to think twice. Something is moving through the fog. _Several somethings_ . Several _snarling_ somethings. Two shots boom and echo into the rainy world before John can even process the cackling howl of retreating coyotes, or what he’s done. It feels proportionately longer before he registers their silhouettes clearly in the mist as the rest of them scatter in every direction. Then, gone. 

Arthur strides three strong steps towards the horses to get a hold of their reins when the coast is clear, and John follows cautiously on his trail. His heart is still hammering, he had been afraid for a moment he had been looking at _real wolves_ … But, no. All the real wolves are gone now. Arthur had promised as much. They stare across the misty planes, the pack of shifty coyotes apparently passing by unseen until just the wrong moment, and Arthur lays a soothing hand on Boadicea’s snout to calm her. John sucks a few adrenaline-addled breaths in and out of his hollow-feeling lungs, and then he turns back to Arthur. 

Arthur’s hand shifts to soothe Old Boy, but he’s looking down at something on the ground now too. John looks down. The coyote is dead for sure, no if’s and’s or but’s about it, and the shot which took it down is as incriminating as the shot that took the second coyote down just five short feet away. Each with a single bullet, straight to the forehead. Right between the eyes. 

_Fuck._

  
  


At first Arthur looks like he can’t register what he’s seeing, and then he lets go of the horses and turns around instead to take a fistful of John’s soggy shirt, knocking John in the sternum hard enough that he drops his gun out of shock. Arthur isn’t gentle this time. In fact, he’s furious. 

“Who _the hell_ are you?” Arthur explodes, hot and low, close to John’s face. “I knew there was _somethin’_ funny about you. Well here’s my proof, ain’t that right?”

“ _Fuck_ , I _told_ you, I’m a nobody!” John sputters, scratching frantically at Arthur’s fist at his shirt collar like he’s a scruffed dog. “A drifter! Let go of me!”

“How come you didn’t say you knew how to shoot? Why bother with this charade, you wanna mess with us that bad?”

“ _Because I didn’t want nobody to know!_ ” 

At last Arthur throws John away, and John stumbles back a few steps with a hand to his neck. They stare at each other in angry silence, until Arthur resumes his line of questioning with a tone that’s a bit tighter, like he’s trying very hard to reign something back. 

“You hid it? On purpose? Why on _earth-_?” 

“ _-Christ_ , Arthur, can’t a man keep some things to himself? Because I’m _good_ at it!” John explodes. “Real good! But people always _want_ stuff from you when you’re good at a thing. Ain’t that right? _Ain’t it?_ ” 

It’s painful to admit, because John is good at so very little, and he longs desperately for praise, but shooting must remain his secret pride and joy. He is a natural born killer through and through, built for bullseyes and paid good money to do it. But the thing is, John is not so fond of killing as he had once been, and sharing this skill with Dutch is a context clue he fears will lead directly to his exposure. Not to mention Arthur. The way Arthur is looking at him right now has lit a fire in his chest. These last few months with Dutch’s gang have been _so very… just so… so incredibly…._ he doesn’t have the words for it. John is blatantly lacking when it comes to ever understanding what exactly is happening to him. His face contorts as the rain picks up. He’s miserable at the thought that all this might vanish. That he might have to go back to being that lonely, angry dog he’d been before coming here. Before meeting everyone, before Dutch, Hosea, Abigail. Before _Arthur_.

Rain runs off the brim of Arthur’s hat. He looks like he’s thinking hard enough to take some of the edge off of that nasty temper of his, and John prays that’ll go in his favor. Arthur knows more than anyone about what happens when you show you can do something well enough for everyone to see. You do it again. And then a million times more after that. 

“Damn it, Milton, you could have at least told _me_. Or hell, even Charles!” Arthur sighs, his mood breaking. His glove slices through the rain as he tosses it in frustration. “Somebody!”

“Yeah, well, I’m tellin’ _you,_ now!” John insists too loud, even though he hadn’t ever really intended to tell anyone in camp, ever. He’s tired of killing. He is very, very tired of it. This sudden revelation is very, very heavy. “Arthur, can’t we go home? Now that you know this is all, uhh, well, you know…?” 

“A fraud?!” 

John swallows. “Uh-huh. That, I guess.” 

For the period of fifteen seconds John is not sure if Arthur is about to leap at him and tear his head off, his eyes are that intense, but then the tension breaks and Arthur looks down and covers his face with one of his large hands. When he looks up again, he’s almost grinning, but not quite. Still more annoyed than amused, but maybe not livid anymore. John is an _excellent_ poker player. 

“Yeah,” Arthur snorts, derisive. “Yeah, I suppose we can. You know, John, maybe you _are_ one of us after all.”

  
  
  
  


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Midnight. 

John always holds his breath as the 12 o’clock hour passes, longing for the first warm beam of dawn to break across the horizon. Time feels like it passes faster out here, where the sky is so impossibly huge that John can see the clouds of a storm rolling in from miles and miles away. On other occasions, when there are no clouds it’s like time stands entirely still, and all the arms on all the clocks pause in place exactly a single tick before anyone’s next exhale. 

  
  


Time has stopped at midnight when Arthur’s trailer windows flicker from brown to gold again in the dark. John sits on the stairs of his own trailer and looks down the camp path at that distant light. All is quiet, everyone either sleeping or absent, and the fires have all crackled down to nothing but the silent, radiating heat of ash and dying gold ember. Only the whistle of wind low over grass is constant, and the world holds its breath while it waits for John to make up his mind about something. 

_Why is Arthur awake again so late?_ Frustrated thoughts circle John’s head like gnats. Arthur is a creature of pattern, and it is long since time he laid his head down for tomorrow’s work. But John keeps thinking of this morning’s rainy lesson, of the feel of Arthur’s chest pressed against his back as he corrected John’s grip on his revolver, and then John huffs and grumbles and taps out a smoke to gnash between his teeth, before he lights the tip. 

_I knew there was somethin’ funny about you, boy._

Smoke drifts through John’s greasy locks as he exhales in a slow puff, eyes going distant. Arthur has been suspicious of John for some time, if what he has heard in Hosea’s office is anything to go by. But by now the push-pull of tension between them is undeniable, and John finds himself stuck on the fantasy that Arthur might recognize him somehow too. Between the two of them, there are the scrapings of the recollection of _something_ , and that something has snarled impossibly with doubt, and confusion, and John’s ever-shifting dreams, and seemingly worst of all, at least in John’s case with a nagging infatuation. John scratches at a bite on his neck like a feckless dog and looks back up to the gold squares of light from Arthur’s distant trailer. 

“Don’t you go knock on that door, you dumbass good-for-nothin’ sneak thief,” John mumbles at himself through smoke, “What’s Arthur want with you anyhow? Used to barely be able to sit on your own damn horse.”

Even John can see what’s smart for him right now. _Running_. He needs to run, too much of his secret life is beginning to show. He should leave immediately, before he gets into some bad business he can’t extricate himself from again. That’s his way of doing things… It has always been his way. These people know him as a drifter, and it ain’t wrong. Abigail would recover, and the others would forget. John doesn’t have a pack, and he’s lived just fine up until now without one. But this morning, with Arthur’s hands brushing his knuckles as he corrects his grip, John knows things will get messy if he stays. Maybe even dangerous. 

Arthur. Strong, snide Arthur with his big hands and broad shoulders and his attitude like John is a troublesome kid, too underfoot too often. Arthur with the brim of his hat ducked below his eyes so he’s only the tense line of a careful mouth, and gold bristles cast by a blue shadow. Arthur on horseback, his body sure, his denim dirt-stained and dusty. Arthur loading his gun in the morning mist and snapping the barrel shut while the horses pull up contented mouthfuls of grass nearby. Arthur’s breath on John’s ear, his voice an octave lower than usual. 

There is something so painful about Arthur Morgan that John is not sure he understands himself or Arthur at all. But he knows he wants Arthur to look at him, to judge his actions as good or bad by his higher standards, and that without that tutelage John imagines himself more lost than he ever was before, even as a drifter brat fresh out of the orphanage. But the painful truth is John knows he won’t leave, because he’s too stubborn a man to abide by what his brain is telling him when he’d rather just listen to his guts. So here he sits like a bump on a log, miserable with the kinds of thoughts that belong to someone with an exponentially higher pay grade than him. 

Maybe, John attempts to reason, his lips twisting and his brows furrowing, he can make a compromise somewhere in the middle. It will be a gamble, but John is uncomfortably confident his hand is a good one without having any evidence to support why. He only _knows_ it, he feels it, somewhere in the roots of his teeth. So he sucks another puff off of his cigarette, then throws it in the dirt before smashing it out with the heel of his deadstock work boot. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


John knocks on Arthur’s trailer door more politely than he usually would, shoddy nerves chafing him raw around the edges. When no response comes he knocks again, but this time like a landlord, with the flat of his fist like he means business. He flinches as the sound echoes down the silent camp corridor, then he stuffs his fingers in his pockets to keep from doing it again. Arthur emerges a moment later in a gray undershirt and a book in his hand, which lags when he sees exactly who is at his door at such a godawful hour. 

“Milton.” Arthur groans, “Hardest fist in the west. You tryin’ to knock a hole in my trailer? This had better be good, kid.” 

“Arthur.” John rasps. “Can I come in?” 

Arthur’s face goes blank as his eyes ricochet over John, taking a ponderous minute to judge the situation. John scuffs a boot in the dirt and looks away, too nervous to look at him too directly. Not yet. 

Finally, Arthur gives a single reticent nod, and moves a little to the side. John scrambles up the stairs and enters over the threshold of night and into the gold-lit interior of Arthur’s trailer. 

  
  
  


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Unlike John’s nearly barren trappings, Arthur’s trailer has a few well-worn pieces of furniture. In the common space, a wooden table is scattered with piles of open books, and an oil lamp sits in the middle of it all. It is a natural light, gold enough to explain the sheen in his windows, and it makes John feel strangely nostalgic.

Arthur has a couch with a stack of woven horse blankets, and a few stocky-legged wooden chairs with short backs. The faux interior walls are lined with racks of antlers. He has skeleton parts of all different sizes, because apparently Arthur is a bit of a nature buff; tufts of bright feathers, snake skins, and colorful bits of egg sit out on every surface, as if unpocketed after a day’s ride and mostly forgotten until later. The sight of it all is almost uncomfortably intimate, like a private journal left open for anyone to read. John swallows once and turns back to face Arthur again just inside the door. 

The big man seems uneasy on his feet. Arthur’s eyes are puffy with sleeplessness, and his hair is a little rumpled, as if he has spent some time wracking a hand through it. He looks honestly troubled, and John wonders if that’s because he doesn’t generally let people into his trailer as a rule. Has John seen anybody breach this door in recent memory? 

“Out with it, Milton.” Arthur rumbles, his mouth a tense line. Familiar. So very familiar. 

John sucks in a breath. “...It’s Marston.” His hands are clammy in his pockets. “My name’s not Milton. It’s John Marston.” 

For a long minute Arthur continues to stare wordlessly at John, the book in his hand completely forgotten. And then all at once he moves again. The book cover hits the floor as Arthur tosses it thoughtlessly away, and instead he turns to clank at a small rolling cart by the kitchen counter. When he turns around again he’s got two shot glasses of whiskey in his hand, and John gratefully reaches out for one before Arthur jerks them back with a frown. Instead of sharing, he takes both shots consecutively, then points with a ruddy finger at the table. 

“ _Sit_!” He barks, and John glumly does as he’s told. 

Fortunately, the whiskey bottle joins them at the table when Arthur sits too, and Morgan thunks a heavy glass down for John and slops an inch of amber liquid into it after he’s filled yet another for himself. Arthur grapples to move back a portion of the pile of books so at least a little bit of empty space is free between them, and then he occupies it by leaning over on a heavy elbow and running a tired hand over his eyes.

“Start over.” His voice issues somewhere from between his fingers. He sounds old. “…Where’s it all begin?” 

John is agog by the fact that Arthur is not yelling, or that he isn’t even a little mad, and opens and closes his mouth a few times. 

“...Was always a drifter. Never lied about that.” 

“...Alright, then. Start with the _lies_ .” Arthur’s voice goes lower. Okay, maybe he’s a _little_ mad. 

“Lies? Nah, more like… _omissions_? Been up and down both coasts, but mostly in the middle, for most of my life. I was raised spare, on my own early. I had to do what I had to do to live. I tried odd jobs… construction, factory work, but it was hard to get without papers. I ain’t got a birth certificate, not anymore. No social security number as far as I know… Don’t pay taxes, don’t want Uncle Sam breathin’ down my goddamn neck. I got off the grid and into security work in my teens, and it just went on from there. I guess you could call me a hired gun. I go where there’s money.” 

“Figured as much,” Arthur breathes into his palm as he finally wipes his hand off his face and settles his gaze evenly on John, who is markedly surprised by this flat pronouncement. Honesty for honesty’s sake sure is something.

“You did?” 

“ _Course_ I did, you think we’re _all_ idiot fools, same as you?” Arthur scoffs, “Could smell the secrets on you a mile off. What business brought you to us?” 

“Nasty business, friend.” John grimaces, then pauses to take a gulp of his whiskey. It’s cheap, but it burns a hot gold track down his throat and settles comfortably in his stomach, so he appreciates it all the same. He needs courage to go on… he’s not sure how much he might tell Arthur, and the danger in that makes his heart beat against his rib cage like a flighty bird. 

“...About eight month back, I got myself hired by a feller in your area you might’ve heard tell of... name’s Micah Bell. Rotten sommabitch if there ever was one, but his money was green enough for me at the time.”

Finally, something like surprise passes over Arthur and he sips on his drink to try to mask it. “...Micah?” His voice is throaty. 

“You know him?” 

Arthur’s eyes smolder. “Oh, I know him. He’s the one what strung you up? That it?”

“That’s right.” 

“And why’d that be, I wonder?” 

John’s lips twitch, before he lets his tongue flick out to whet them. His brows draw together at the memory of the rope around his throat. His shoulder sometimes still aches when the barometric pressure shifts. One day, he will _kill_ Micah Bell. “I guess you could say... I didn’t do the job he wanted me to do.” 

“And what job was that?” 

“Bastard’s in a turf war with some local outfit. Bell wanted me to kill their-” 

John stops up short, frozen like a rabbit in the headlights. An obvious revelation hits him like a freight train, and then he quickly shoots the rest of the whiskey in his glass. His tongue stays dumb in his mouth for a whole, entire minute, during which Arthur’s face grows progressively more drawn and tired.

_John Marston, you pigheaded, stupid, good for nothing shit-for-brains sonovabitch. You’re a very fine fool._

He had forgotten that conversation in Micah Bell’s musty office all those long months ago... the agreement for a hit he’d made before he had ever even found the hidden money in the cookhouse. Before the rope had gone around his neck. Now that he meditates on that afternoon, expunged completely from his memory by the introduction of money, death, and love into his more immediate story, it becomes painfully obvious in retrospect who that target had always been meant to be. Dutch and Hosea’s second in command. The person is sitting right in front of him. 

$8,000 for the death of Arthur Morgan. 

Instead of paying any attention to Arthur’s name, John had simply cast it aside at the first sign of a higher aspiration. Micah is a slimy sommabitch, and twice as mean to boot, but even John can smell the money on another fool when he’s got it. John has played the poacher before; the double-crosser, in-and-out in the night, like a sneak-thief. Stealing is mostly easier than killing, and often far more profitable. He’s good at it, and as a wanderer with no real name to trace, John has lived his life mostly as a ghost until now. He’d never cared about honor. He’s just as likely to rob the man who gives him a job, if that outcome is more favorable. Or at least, he used to be like that. But then came the Pretty Pony, and the first night he’d laid eyes on Arthur’s solitary figure, smoking under a lonely streetlight. If only John had known the firestorm he had been stepping into when he had picked the lock on that cookhouse door. He thinks his fate has always felt out of his own control, no matter how hard he tries not to make a mess of things, and this tangled knot of circumstance is the final sign he needs to prove it all true. He is not in control at all. Not in the least bit. 

Arthur seems to have made his own connections well enough as the silence between them draws out. At least he has if his troubled expression is anything to go by. He sits back in his chair and puts his hands on the table, like he’s thinking hard. Arthur always looks like he’s worrying or working on a problem, though he is liable to never communicate those inner workings out loud. Briefly, John is scared of what Arthur must think of all this, if telling him might have been a huge mistake. If this night might be his last in the camp. But Arthur only looks at his hands a while, then says, “You could’ve run off a hundred times, but you stayed. Help me make some sense of that.” 

“Huh? Well, way I figure..?” John chuckles nervously. “...It musta been Old Boy? He convinced me to give the family life a shot. Now I’m finally _friends_ with the big bastard, you know? It’d be a real waste not to take advantage.” 

It is not a real answer. They both know it. 

John can’t read Arthur at all right now, only sense that he’s moody in the gold light, eyes working the surface of the table as he processes his private thoughts. Why is Arthur _always_ such an enigma when he’s not yelling? What bounces around inside his skull with all those horses and animal bones and lesser men crumpling between his big hands?

“Abigail.” Arthur concludes, and it takes a minute for John to realize Arthur is still rationalizing John’s decision to stay. Frustration replaces John’s other emotions wholesale and he kicks a leg of the table, making the tornado shell of the oil lamp rattle ominously in its frame. Arthur jumps in place, startled, and John leans forward angrier than he had expected. 

“ _Christ_ , Arthur, you hate yourself that much? Look in the mirror once in a while! Is it such a stretch to think I might’ve got some _other_ reasons to stick around?” 

Arthur peers back at him in shock. 

The quality of silence is different. John feels it on his skin as much as in his chest. And there it is again. Arthur is looking at him one more time like he had the morning they fought in John’s trailer about Abigail… like he is holding on to something he doesn’t want to say, but that the notion is as close to the surface as any reflection that skims across water. John’s heart hammers in his chest as he tries his best to keep his poker face on. It holds, but just barely. He becomes abruptly aware of the fact that he hasn’t brushed his hair, or even washed his face in days. They stare at each other in edgy silence, until Arthur’s eyes slide down John’s neck, then under his chin to the triangle of chest left bare from his unbuttoned shirt. 

“...Don’t make a fool of me, John.” Arthur says without any intonation. But John can also swear he sounds a little scared. 

This statement comes as an electric jolt. Despite everything, John feels himself get a little stiff in his pants, and he pauses to internally berate himself for the timing. John is such a _bastard_ sometimes. But Arthur skimming so close to a topic John has wanted to discuss for weeks is just too much for him not to react. It must be the adrenaline, he reasons. John fights the urge to readjust himself in his jeans and instead he lays a hand over Arthur’s hand on the surface of the table. He does it carefully, like he thinks Arthur might produce a knife out of his pocket and skewer him for making such a remarkably forward gesture. “I _won’t_.” He adamantly rasps, keeping his eyes on where their hands touch. Nonthreatening. Almost passive. How could he ever make a fool out of Arthur? Arthur who is bigger and stronger and better than most men John has ever met? John has always been the fool between the two of them. From that very first night.

Arthur looks down at John’s hand on top of his own, but he doesn’t say anything, or even attempt to pull back. Instead, he only watches for a while, then unbelievably turns his hand over so that the pads of John’s fingertips can trace the broad, flat length of his palm. His calluses are warm and hard, and just a little damp, and they give way easier than expected to the brush of a finger. John can’t recollect the last time he touched a person like this, just to touch, and it makes his mind go pleasantly flat and warm. The room is dead quiet. 

Finally Arthur gently pulls his hand away, and he pours himself another shot. When he tosses it back, it’s quick enough to make John flinch. “Why’d you come to my trailer, kid?” Arthur gasps through the burn of liquor. “If you were waitin’ on an invitation from me, you know you’d have been sittin’ on your hands forever. So what changed?” 

“I guess… I just..? _Hellfire_ , Morgan, I just wanted you to know the truth! About _me_ .” John says, but he knows it still isn’t everything. It isn’t the _whole truth_ … But he needs Arthur to look at him. That truth is easier to understand the closer to it he gets. Here, now, John can feel it. He needs Arthur to acknowledge what has been growing between them, whatever shape it is, whatever meaning it has. Everything in the world has gone dim in comparison to the sunshine-bright feeling of Arthur Morgan’s pride and approval. Without it, life seems remarkably less worth living. 

“Yeah, well.” Arthur mutters, corking the whiskey bottle again. His face is starting to get ruddy from the drink. “Sounds like you’re missin’ some parts of the truth. Come back when you figure it out. Or don’t. No skin off my nose. Don’t cry, I’ll keep your secret.” 

John frowns, leaning even nearer. Warm gold light collects in a pool across the table, and touches Arthur’s whiskers, and the tips of his bangs, pleasantly untidy for once. What kind of trick is this supposed to be? Marston has always been a simple thinker, and he is beyond annoyed by this game Arthur keeps playing whenever they get too close. Arthur is one of the strongest men John has ever met, but he hides from time to time like a coward too, even though he is the farthest from cowardly that John reckons is possible. _Why can’t Arthur just say what he is thinking?_

Impulsively, John reaches out and takes Arthur by the wrist again, and Arthur goes still as stone. John doesn’t let go, but he does glide his thumb up Arthur’s pulse line, and his fingers fan out across the twisting muscles of his forearm. Why can’t Arthur just _say something_? Can’t he feel it too? 

Arthur is very, very quiet again, until, almost resentfully, “...You meant _that_ part of the truth.” 

“That’s right.” John confirms with a gruff kind of confidence, though his chest is full of snakes. He is certainly no coward either, but this isn’t an easy moment.

“...And Abigail?” Arthur eventually mutters.

“Jesus, why’re you so stuck on her? It ain’t like that!” John’s hand tightens on Arthur’s wrist, and for his troubles Arthur finally wrenches his arm free. He looks tired again. Almost like this conversation has aged him. _How old is Arthur, anyway?_

“...Well... I suppose it _is_ like that,” John amends, “but… it _won’t_ be. You understand me, Morgan? _It_ _won’t_ _be_! Me n’ Abigail? We’re more… peas in a pod than the lovers type... I have an honest suspicion we’d end up killin’ each other.” 

At that, Arthur snorts like he agrees, and it is the first positive affirmation in this conversation in so long that John lets out a whole lungful of tense air.

A few strands of gold hair fall across Arthur’s forehead as he leans over to flip an open book shut on the table, then to thoughtfully tap on the cover. John glances down; it is old, a cloth-bound edition in dark blue, with chipping gold lettering stamped deeply into the cover. _Le Morte D’Arthur._ When Arthur brushes a finger in silence along the spine, John looks back up at him again. All at once the big man seems remarkably vulnerable, which isn’t something John had expected. 

“...I _seen_ you _,_ boy.” Finally, Arthur’s voice comes as a rough whisper, and he looks up from the table to level John with one of those hard stares of his that doesn’t spare anyone or anything. Like he’s really paying attention. “You got a look about you. _Marston_ , you said? Heard that name somewhere before. _Where did we meet?_ ” 

What is happening? John is trying so desperately to keep up, but he thinks his heart might fall out of his asshole if he doesn’t keep his cheeks clenched tight. Is this real? Does Arthur _recognize_ him, the way John is finding all the time that Arthur is more and more familiar? What does that mean? The similarity to John’s own feelings is uncanny. Deja vu belongs to one man alone, but never to two at once. Or, can it?! 

John leans back in his chair, a little stunned. His mouth opens and closes, but no sound comes out. 

Does Arthur have similar moments, divorced from sanity, where some days he also looks at John and thinks the irrational thought, _‘I have seen this man somewhere before’_ ? Arthur has been in John’s dreams for so long by now that honest thoughts of him are all starting to get mixed together. The real truth about Arthur, about who he is... It seems startlingly close at hand. It feels like tracking someone through the night, like a moving shadow that can’t be seen in darkness, but only felt. _Almost seen_ , but known in the teeth and in the guts all the same, just like when John has lined up a perfect shot, right before he pulls the trigger. John doesn’t need to know the real truth about Arthur to know that what he has been tracking is in front of him. Arthur feels.... real. There will be time for questions later. John is sure he will have _very many_ of those... But for right now, he finds he could very much care less. 

Instead of clobbering together some tomfool’s answer which wouldn’t do their situation a lick of good, instead John pushes out of his chair and takes a creaking step in the gold shadows towards Arthur. The big man tenses up, anticipating an action John is sure he couldn’t guess, but he takes it slow anyway when he painstakingly reaches out to gently push the fingers of his right hand through Arthur’s hair. Just touching him is enough to make John’s heart leap, like the adrenaline that courses through his body when he’s out riding, fast and hard in the early morning. 

The trailer is a pristine kind of quiet as John stands by Arthur’s knee and cards his fingertips across Arthur’s scalp. It seems as if his touch isn’t unwanted when Arthur’s eyes almost immediately close, and even in the gold dim John can see the head in his hand lean into his palm, and Arthur’s neck goes flush with goose prickles. Strands of Arthur’s progressively more and more unkempt hair catch on John’s shirt as their weight shifts, and their limbs twist closer together. John wonders when the last time was that someone touched Arthur in any way other than comradery. John wonders on top of that, if this entire conversation is evidence enough to support the belief that Arthur might actually _want_ to sleep together after all, and his problem has only ever been how good he is at hiding from things when he finds them uncomfortable.

Taking a risk, John’s palm pushes town, fingers sliding under Arthur’s chin and scratching through his beard. His thumb pushes at Arthur’s lips, and he feels one of Arthur’s big hands slide up his thigh and grip his leg at the exact moment that same mouth opens, and John plunges across the hot surface of Arthur’s tongue. 

The heat of it ripples down and hits John hard, his cock invigorated and jumping with excitement, and he barely sucks back the surprised, undignified noise which tries to escape him. _Fuck_ , _Arthur’s mouth is hot._ Bristles scrape across John’s palm and knuckles. As those soft lips work around the fleshy base of his thumb, John briefly wonders if he’s dreaming again. The mouth sucking on him isn’t one that’s particularly skilled, but what is lacking in talent is easily made up for by pure enthusiasm alone. That, and _heat_. So John pushes in deeper, feeling along the rough line of Arthur’s molars, and inadvertently he pushes the rest of his body closer too, until Arthur’s hand on his leg becomes two hands, both gripping him hard through his jeans. In what feels like no time at all, John is unabashedly and unrepentantly hard. 

Eventually it comes down to John having to pull his hand back on his own, because Arthur seems committed to this intimacy in a way that’s frankly staggering. Instead, John wracks his hand back down and pushes up on Arthur’s jaw so they can meet stares, and what he sees there he is sure he will remember forever. Arthur is not a liar, John knows this, and in this moment there is no lie anywhere on his face about what is happening. Arthur’s eyes tell the truth. He makes it very clear what he wants without saying a single word, his blue gaze tracing John with a heat that before John had only ever seen shadows of. This must be what Arthur had always been trying to conceal, and the thought alone is enough to make John let out another haggard breath. It must be obvious how hard John is, how completely out of sorts, his cock is practically at Arthur’s eye level for fucksake and John is sure he could hang a coat on it right now for all he’s invested in the moment. So when Arthur stares at him in contemplative silence, then deliberately reaches up to pop open the top button on his jeans, John isn’t sure if he wants to laugh or cry more from the surprise and relief. 

Arthur pays only as much attention to John’s clothes as is strictly necessary, and having freed him only far enough to gain access, he immediately falls to his task like a starving man. Finally, John finds he can’t hold it in any longer and he lets himself groan, then hisses with his tongue against his teeth when Arthur’s own tongue slides all the way down and brushes the base of his cock. Fuck _. Fuck! Is this real?_ It can’t be, John thinks again, even when Arthur’s hands push up his thighs and grab his ass, pulling his hips forward to meet his mouth. Again in this activity Arthur doesn’t show any particular skill, but he has an undeniable, insistent enthusiasm, and then of course there is the simple fact alone that it is _Arthur_ doing it. Arthur’s mouth, Arthur’s tongue, Arthur’s hands. The strength of this want is staggering, and John’s legs feel weak even as he grabs Arthur’s head and helps to push himself further down that hot throat. This is too crude, too fast, too hot, too wet to tolerate, and it feels good enough that things quickly begin to fall apart. Balance. Thoughts. Vision. Only Arthur’s mouth on his cock, and his hair soft in John’s fingers, are what matters. 

“ _Fuck…_ I’m… gonna…” John pants through clenched teeth, thinking he might pop after two minutes right there like some inexperienced fucking kid, but before he can come, Arthur abruptly pulls off and pushes John back a step. Stumbling over himself, John barely stays upright as Arthur rises powerfully to his feet and pulls John back in close again, but this time gives him a brisk turn and pushes him back down on his stomach across the table. The oil lamp rattles ominously as a minor avalanche takes place and several books clatter to the floor, and John feels a jolt of fear for the first time when one of Arthur’s muscular arms hits the table by his shoulder. But Arthur doesn’t hurt him. Instead, his other hand reaches to twist at John’s jeans, jerking them down then pulling his legs together tight, before John hears a zipper release and Arthur pushes his own hardness into the crevice between John’s thighs. It is a unique sensation, to say the very least. By the simple feel of it, like all the rest of Arthur, he is huge. 

They are both strung so tight John can feel them share the same shiver, and Arthur leans down to murmur in John’s ear, “it’s alright, boy,” with a gentle pat that encompasses half of John’s face and makes him tremble like a newborn. “Easy,” and then “go ahead, touch yourself.”

The tone of it alone is strong enough that it’s a wonder John still manages not to come on the spot. It is nearly the same voice Arthur uses with his damnable horses, and John is furious with want at the concept of being kept by Arthur in any kind of way. So he does what Arthur says and sandwiches a tense arm down to grab his dick, and Arthur’s own cock pushes up against him, hot and hard and sliming a trail of sweat and precome along his balls, and the sensory overload is sharply and acutely much too much. John groans louder than before into the spine of an open book, and Arthur’s weight thrusts into him in several hard, successive strokes, and their clothes chafe, rucking up between them, and John jerks himself and grasps at the table with his free hand and Arthur’s knees push John’s legs more tightly together and he grabs John by the hair and John curses like he hasn’t since he was a teenager and Arthur laughs at that, but then he moans too, and it is such a welcome sound, such an unadulterated sound like Arthur is really being honest for the very first time, that John comes in a final cascade of profanities, splattering white across the faux board trailer floor. 

Something about John’s body shaking seems to be enough, because three more quick thrusts leaves Arthur trembling in silence too. John feels the moment as it happens, when hot come hits the back of his softening cock before it also patters to the floor, filling the small room with the musky scent of sex. 

They both breathe heavily in the resulting aftermath, John’s rib cage feeling crushed against the table, and Arthur leans over to rest his sweaty forehead at the top of John’s spine. Most unsettlingly of all, he takes a moment to brush one of his large hands over the side of John’s face again, this blind touch tentative at first, for all he had just fucked John at a seeming moment’s notice, in the same place where not twenty minutes ago he had been dutifully reading alone like a monk. The hand is gentle, and John can’t help but twist up into it, not sure why this gesture among all things from tonight seems to carry the keenest sensation. It makes John feel…? What? Something like a feeling from one of his dreams of Arthur. Sadness. 

Eventually Arthur stands up, and John twists around just in time to see him tucking himself back into his pants, a rich red flush burnt across his cheeks. If it’s from the drinking or the unexpected fucking seems irrelevant, but John would like to think it was the fucking. They observe each other a moment more, sizing up the space between them, before apparently Arthur makes some private judgement of his own and strips off his own sweaty shirt entirely. He’s broad-chested, and hairier than John would have guessed. Then Arthur makes the slow, tired procession over to his small couch, and finally sits down on it with an exhausted _whumph_. Cigarettes produce themselves out of his pocket, and he holds out the box to John, who stands up, also tucks himself, takes one, and collapses back into his own chair again too. Inside his jeans, John can still feel Arthur’s come dribbling down one of his legs. 

For a while, they both smoke in silence, eyeing one another with sated interest. 

When Arthur’s cigarette is nearly spent, he casually ashes the tip and murmurs into the quiet, “...You know… about Dutch. I told him you weren’t no good at shootin’. Told him you were rotten, point of fact.” 

John lifts an eyebrow. “That so?” 

“Yeah, that’s so.” 

“Felt sorry for me?” 

Arthur snorts. “Like hell I did.” 

“Well I hope you didn’t fuck me out of sympathy neither.” 

“ _No_ , dumbass.” Arthur sighs and scratches his forehead with his thumb, “What happens if you’re dogshit with that shiny new revolver of yours?” 

Considering he’s feeling especially soporific in the moment, it takes a beat to arrive at any conclusion. “...More lessons?” 

Arthur gives a slow nod, and hides what must be the world’s most beautiful smirk behind a puff on the stub of his cigarette. “What’d you say to you and me makin’ a regular thing of it?”

John leans forward in his chair, and something giddy washes over him as he makes a revelation. He’s eager and grinning through his greasy fringe in a way he hadn’t anticipated. Arthur… had already decided about the lessons? His lungs swell ten sizes too big in the cavity of his chest, like he has taken sudden flight, and even as John realizes the precise thing he had been avoiding has just now happened, and he is far more likely to die in this gang now than ever to leave it again, he does not think he has ever heard a suggestion that is more beautiful. 

  
  


_He’s particular about you. You haven’t noticed?_

  
  


“I’d say that sounds mighty fine to me, Mister Morgan.” John’s grin stretches wider in the warm golden glow of the lamplight.

“None of that anymore,” Arthur grunts, still pink in the face as he jabs his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe, “just Arthur.” 

“Alright then… _just_ _Arthur_.” John rasps with a nod through cigarette smoke, even though he knows; This man will never be ‘ _just Arthur’_ again. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought Covid would give me lots of additional time to write, but turns out a worldwide pandemic and economic collapse is (surprise) actually incredibly stressful, so writing this year has been really hard!!! But lately there's been some interesting discourse going around about the unadulterated horniness of queer ship fanfiction and I just felt like, since I have this power, it was my duty to blow the dust off of some of my old projects and keep on trucking. I really like reading well written fic, so I should contribute more to the collective pot during such a stressful time! It's my wartime duty, or whatever. This is my pledge to you, that I can and WILL make this generally plotty fic a lot hornier, for everyone's greater good.


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